The Vatican announced Wednesday morning that Pope Francis would undergo emergency abdominal surgery in the afternoon. An intervention was decided to avoid a risk of intestinal obstruction. Therefore, the sovereign pontiff will undergo a laparotomy and plastic surgery of the abdominal wall with a prosthesis, according to a press release from the Holy See.
Pope Francis suffers “an incisional hernia that causes recurrent, painful and worsening subocclusive syndromes,” according to the Holy See. The risk that the Pope would develop an intestinal obstruction made this intervention “necessary” urgently.
Risk of intestinal obstruction
According to Professor Laurent Beaugerie, head of the department of gastroenterology and nutrition at the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, this hernia may be the result of a previous operation that the head of the Catholic Church underwent. In particular, the Pope had been operated on the intestines two years ago.
“For that we had to split the muscles of the abdominal wall, and in people who are a bit old, fragile (…) the muscles end up reopening and the intestinal structures can get stuck several times, causing weight on the patient a significant risk of occlusion ”, he explains on BFMTV.
Intestinal obstruction is the “complete closure of the intestine, which can no longer allow the passage of gas, feces and food.” A condition that requires urgent treatment.
“You cannot live several days with a complete occlusion”, specifies the specialist.
To eliminate this risk, the medical profession will first numb the Pope, then open very small portions of his abdomen to insert tubes equipped with tiny cameras, which will allow the instruments to be directed.
Doctors will then be able to put the digestive tract back into place, explains Dr. Alain Ducardonnet. They will then slide a kind of plastic “plate” to close the hole and prevent the hernia from coming back.
A “complication-free” surgical procedure
The surgical procedure “is not complicated” and the intervention itself “is not substantial”, according to Dr. Alain Ducardonnet, as the operation is “well coded”. Related complications are “extremely rare.”
On the other hand, it is general anesthesia that “is not easy” for an 86-year-old patient, especially since the Pope suffered a lung infection at the end of March.
However, a period of rest will be mandatory after this intervention, so that “the digestive tract recovers”, explains Dr. Alain Ducardonnet, who estimates the time for “1 or 2 months” for “everything to return to normal”. order”. The Holy See announced Tuesday morning that he would remain hospitalized “for several days” after his operation.
Jorge Bergoglio, his real name, had already been hospitalized in this hospital for ten days in July 2021 for a left colectomy (surgery to remove a portion of the colon), scheduled for symptomatic diverticular stenosis of the colon and had claimed to have left sequelae. of anesthesia
The Pope is constantly monitored by a team of caretakers, both in the Vatican and during his trips abroad. A precaution that is all the more necessary since he has an extensive medical history behind him: at the age of 21 he nearly died of pleurisy and suffered the partial removal of a lung.
The next information communicated by the Vatican will arrive only at the end of the day, at the end of the intervention, which could last several hours.
Source: BFM TV
