Chapter 353 - A Surgery So Successful That Sends Chills Down The Spine (1/2)

Professor Tian had a great technique.

He made a skin incision, exposing the spinous process and lamina. The 2 lower vertebrae from the pathological vertebra were also fully visible.

In order to better expose the incision, he should cut both sides of the sacrospinalis adjacent to the pathological vertebra and separate them by proximal and distal retraction.

Under normal circ.u.mstances, the patient should have around 200 mL of bleeding.

The reason was that the surgeon would breach the periosteum in the process of exposing the spinous process and lamina.

However, the surgery today went surprisingly well.

The bleeding was maintained below 50 mL, the entire surgical field was exceptionally clean.

Professor Tian was very satisfied with his own technique. He felt that today’s surgery would be smooth sailing, the bleeding volume might be capped under 3 liters.

The following steps would cause the bleeding to be heavier. Professor Tian’s movements became slower and gentler. He carefully checked each procedure to prevent accidental hemorrhage.

He started to gouge out the spinous process and lamina that got invaded by the tumor with a rongeur.

“Crack,” a small piece of bone was removed.

The lamellae were not as compact due to the tumor infiltration, producing a cracking sound like a defeated army.

Even though it was brittle, the tumor angiogenesis allowed the lamellae to receive sufficient blood supply, which would also lead to a sudden increase in bleeding.

The patient would usually bleed profusely starting from this step.

After removing a piece of the lamina, Professor Tian covered it with a dry gauze out of habit.

Strange…

Professor Tian noticed that it took a full 10 seconds for the dry gauze to be soaked in blood.

Professor Tian was skillful, but he was not as good as the Legend level. Nevertheless, he could be considered to be an orthopedic professor with a higher Master level, approaching the Grandmaster level.

He had an in-depth understanding of vertebral resection surgery.

It was still plausible to account for the minimal bleeding prior to this step to his excellent dissection skills.

However, it was not possible to have such a low amount of bleeding after removing the lamina with a rongeur.

Normally, the surgery would be continued in a pool of blood from this step onwards.

This was beyond what the aspirator could manage.

Moreover, the bleeding would cloud the surgical field and the vicious cycle continues.

Fresh frozen red blood cells had been prepared, awaiting Professor Tian’s orders to start the transfusion.

This was weird. Could it be a rare tumor? Insufficient blood supply maybe?

That would not be the case either. Professor Tian could not fathom the situation in front of his eyes.

Even if there was insufficient blood supply to the tumor, the lamina should have a rich supply of blood vessels. It would never take 10 seconds to soak the gauze entirely in blood.

“Professor Tian?” Dr. Zhou noticed Professor Tian drifted away, not knowing what happened, he called him softly.

Professor Tian came to his senses from his endless speculations. He set himself on his feet and proceeded with the surgery.

He continued to chip the lamina off to expose the spinal nerve roots.

The tumor invaded the spinal ca.n.a.l. The dura mater was bulging without a pulse, epidural fat was absent, and the dural sac was distorted and compressed.

Professor Tian did not continue covering the gouged lamina with dry gauze because he wanted to see the extent of the bleeding.

As expected, there was very little blood, only a few millimeters.

It must be the interventional surgery!

Professor Tian quickly identified the reason behind it, but he could not accept the truth.

As a spine surgery specialist and a professor in Imperial Capital, he frequently collaborated with interventional doctors to perform a vertebral resection surgery.

Had he encountered a surgery with such minimal bleeding?

None, not even once.

With the support of interventional surgery, they were able to reduce a certain amount of bleeding. It could be related to the surgeon’s technique, but not that much.