Dr Lukas Steffen and his team save a patient just in time
Pedro Quispe* comes from the mountain village of Humaccata near Abancay. Over the past few days he felt more and more bloated. The pains in his stomach area became more and more unbearable and the circumference of his body expanded dramatically. Instinctively Pedro felt that he desperately needed medical help in order to stay alive. When he reached the Hospital Diospi Suyana last Tuesday he was diagnosed with sigma-volvulus. With this emergency the left lower part of the colon fills with air and faeces. Without surgical intervention such a “balloon” bursts sooner or later and causes a life-threatening peritonitis.
On that Tuesday evening Dr Lukas Steffen, Dr Olga Koop and an experienced team of assistants operated on the 84-year-old. The affected loop was removed and the two ends were sewn together. After a long, tiring day anaesthetist Elisabeth Stempel performed a further anaesthetic.
Four days after the operation the Quechua-Indian is feeling a whole lot better and keenly does his breathing exercises in order to prevent a pulmonary complication.
Quechuas frequently suffer from a volvulus of the sigma, because their sigma loop – that normally is 25cms long – can be up to four-times as long. (* Name changed. The pictures have been publicised with the patient’s expressed consent.)
