About 700 endovascular surgeries performed annually in Minsk

Every year, about 500-700 endovascular procedures and about 400-500 open surgeries are performed at the Republican Research and Practical Centre for Paediatric Surgery – as informed by the Centre’s Director, Konstantin Drozdovsky, in his talk with the Belarus 1 TV channel

Photo: video screenshot

Belarus has been among the global leaders in providing medical assistance to children with heart pathologies for two decades.

“Until 2012, about 700 children underwent an open-heart surgery here [at the Centre], which involved an incision, an access to the chest and cardiac arrest, but the tendency was drastically changed later on: since 2012, the number of endovascular procedures is exceeding [the number of ordinary ones]. We usually perform about 500-700 endovascular surgeries a year and about 400-500 open-heart operations. This means that most of our small patients go home with cured hearts without an incision. Thanks to the policy of our state, we have all necessary equipment to correct children’s heart diseases,” Mr. Drozdovsky said.

Importantly, this assistance is free. Moreover, before the pandemic, Belarusian cardiac surgeons went abroad to perform operations, also inviting foreign specialists to the country. Accordingly, the exchange of experience was established and, recently, an eleven-year-old boy with an abdominal aortic aneurysm was operated on for the first time in the world jointly by Belarusian doctors and their Greek colleague.