BOLOGNA A boy from Sassuolo (Modena) with a passion for football (he is a striker for Sporting Scandiano) was found to have an anomaly in his heart during his annual physical fitness check-up. This is the beginning of the story of Giovanni, a sixteen-year-old who saw his life overwhelmed by an unexpected event: the diagnosis of a heart tumor and a delicate, highly complex operation performed at the Salus Hospital in Reggio Emilia, a GVM facility. Care & Research accredited with the National Health Service, “which managed to give him back all the possibilities that life can offer him. After a short period in intensive care, coordinated by Dr. Antonello RagoGiovanni finished his stay in the ward with 15 days of cardiorespiratory rehabilitation”. This was underlined in a note by the GVM Care & Research group.
The sporting preparation before the start of the championship is about to begin again and Giovanni, as usual, undergoes a sports medical examination: the result of the echocardiogram requires further investigation. “I thought it was a normal check – comments Giovanni – I was really upset when I discovered there was something else”.
Cardiac imaging tests are performed routinely and with a certain expertise at Salus Hospital and these tests in fact confirm the presence of a 1.4 cm cardiac tumor, a ‘little ball’ located in the heart, in the cavity of the left ventricle. Capillary hemangiomas represent 2.8-5% of benign heart tumors which in turn account for 75% of all cardiac tumors. Heart tumors have an autopsy prevalence of 0.002-0.3%, which gives an idea of the rarity of cardiac capillary hemangioma.
”The position of the mass, in correspondence with the cardiac apex originating from a false tendon cord, and its considerable size, made it necessary to intervene in the short term – he says Vinicio Fiorani, head of the Cardiac Surgery Unit at Salus Hospital – This type of tumor is very rare and has a tendency to grow, with the risk of obstructing the blood flow or detaching and embolizing damaging other organs (such as the brain with the serious consequence of a stroke). It must therefore be removed. We decided to intervene in a minimally invasive way, in a minithoracotomy (i.e. passing through a small cut of a few centimeters on the right chest and with the aid of a camera) safeguarding very important structures in the heart. In the literature there is only one case of hemangioma removed minimally invasively (but of the cavernous type), we can therefore claim to be the first to remove a capillary type hemangioma in a minimally invasive manner. All this confirms Salus Hospital as a point of reference for highly complex heart operations and with microinvasive and minimally invasive methods that allow us to reduce trauma to the patient both during surgery and in post-operative recovery”.
A family on ‘stand-by’. “A diagnosis of cancer is always a hard blow for an adult, even more significant when it concerns a teenager, with emotional repercussions not only on the young person but on the entire family”, highlight the doctors of GVM Care & Research,
“It was a bolt from the blue – recalls the boy’s mother -. All the doctors, nurses and service workers were very kind, they welcomed us with open arms and made us feel understood. Doctor Fiorani, a person very positive, he was able to reassure us about the surgery and this allowed us to return home peacefully.”
Today there are in fact diagnostic tests, such as cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and cardiac CT, which, thanks to their non-invasiveness and high resolution of the images produced, allow the identification of small anomalies and in difficult positions, in the initial stages of the pathology, sometimes not always well visible with a simple echocardiogram, as in this case. These tests become fundamental as a support for a reference Cardiac Surgery such as that of Salus Hospital.
Giovanni will have to be patient but with time he will be able to return to leading a normal life and playing football. “After the operation I spent some time at home and on Monday 15 April, less than a month after the operation, I returned to school. It was a bit like starting again after the summer holidays. I am happy to resume many aspects of normal life and I was really happy to find all the support from my classmates and teachers, which was never lacking during the days when I had to stay at home. Now the goal is to return stronger than before even on the football pitches “, concludes Giovanni.
