Hong Kong patient in a critical condition after device malfunctions during brain operation
Tissue glue was being injected into patient to control bleeding in blood vessels in brain at time of incident
An elderly patient is in a critical condition after a machine for scanning blood vessels malfunctioned during an operation at a Hong Kong public hospital, with health authorities investigating the incident.
The Hospital Authority said on Thursday that the 66-year-old male patient suffering from a brain condition underwent a procedure at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei on Monday.
The condition – known as cerebellar arteriovenous malformation – occurs when arteries in the brain link directly to nearby veins without passing through the normal small vessels that should be between them.
In a normal situation, an angiography machine would show real-time images of the blood vessels in a patient’s brain, the authority said.
It said that during “the procedure when the patient was injected with tissue glue to control bleeding from a small blood vessel, the screen of the angiography machine did not show the normal flow of tissue glue in the blood vessel”.
The authority said the doctor immediately suspended the injection procedure after considering the situation was “unusual”.
