PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A medical thriller is solved at Penn Medication the place docs additionally devised a brand new remedy for a doubtlessly life-threatening situation.
The affected person can also be an worker at Penn. She was affected by debilitating signs for months along with her anxious colleagues working exhausting to determine what was incorrect.
“Thanks a lot, Dr. Itkin,” Ronni Elena mentioned. “You saved my life.”
Elena will get emotional thanking the group at Penn Medication who discovered her medical thriller.
“They refused to surrender they usually advised me I used to be going to be OK,” she mentioned.
The docs had been additionally her pals. Elena works at Penn as a secretary in cardiac intensive care. Seven months in the past she began having intense gastrointestinal points and misplaced 80 kilos whereas her stomach was full of fluid.
“I began passing out for no motive,” Elena mentioned. “No person might determine it out.”
She managed to work as a lot as she might. Lastly, after months of testing, there was a prognosis.
“She had this situation known as Protein Dropping Enteropathy the place you lose protein in your bowels and you are not capable of take in vitamin,” Dr. Todd Hecht, a hospitalist at Penn Medication, mentioned.
Dr. Hecht says it is a uncommon and doubtlessly life-threatening situation. Conventional therapies did not work, so the group at Penn tried one thing new.
“I personally have by no means seen this earlier than,” Hecht mentioned.
Elena had an obstruction in her thoracic duct inflicting the back-up of fluid into her abdomen. To clear that she had thoracic duct bypass surgical procedure. It is the primary time it was used to deal with her situation.
“It is a new method, new method new illness, new imaging that we determine for you and can determine for different folks,” Dr. Max Itkin mentioned. “It was superb that it really labored.”
“I’ve my life again,” Elena mentioned.
Her signs are gone, she’s gained again the burden and is starting to really feel like herself once more.
“Now I am on the highway to restoration,” Elena mentioned. “I am so joyful they saved my life.”
The Penn group will probably be presenting Elena’s case at a medical convention Monday. They hope the surgical procedure used to deal with Elena will probably be utilized by different sufferers along with her situation.
