Dr. Jovan Bozinovski, co-director of the Ohio State Aortic Center, said the new minimally invasive aortic aneurysm procedure involves accessing the injured area through the patient’s blood vessels to insert stents and avoid larger incisions. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Chuck McMullens reached for his bedroom phone to dial 911 as he collapsed to the floor in early July 2020, losing feeling in both of his legs, terrified that first responders wouldn’t make it to his Newark home in time to save him.
“I lost all my legs — my strength to my legs and everything. I didn’t have anything. I couldn’t walk and I was paralyzed from my legs down,” 57-year-old McMullens said.
Earlier that day, he felt a sharp pain in his lower abdomen, but said he was not concerned enough to call for help until it reached his chest. When an ambulance arrived, paramedics rushed McMullens to a Newark hospital. Doctors said he had an aortic aneurysm, and he was flown by helicopter to the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State for a long and invasive surgery.
Dr. Jovan Bozinovski, co-director of the Ohio State Aortic Center, said a new minimally invasive procedure could have helped avoid the taxing operation. He said it involves accessing the injured area through the patient’s blood vessels to insert stents and avoid larger incisions — such as open-chest surgery, the usual treatment for large aneurysms, according to the Mayo Clinic. The procedure is part of a two-year trial and has been performed on a few dozen patients since October 2020 with positive results so far, he said.
An aortic aneurysm occurs when the aortic artery — the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body — balloons to form a bulge next to the heart, Bozinovski said. He said not everyone who has an aortic aneurysm experiences a rupture or dissection — when the artery wall splits — so the number of people living with it is unknown, but between 300 and 600 dissections occur in Ohio each year.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 10,000 people died from aortic aneurysms in 2018.
Symptoms of aortic dissections or ruptures can vary and depend on the particular area in the aorta they occur, Bozinovski said. He said ruptures are more severe, and patients often have chest, back or stomach pain, while a dissection typically presents as a tearing-type pain, if any symptoms present at all.
“Most people walking around the street don’t know about the disease,” Bozinovski said. “The only way you can enact prevention — so bad things don’t happen — is for people to be aware that they can seek out medical advice and investigations.”
Because of this, Bozinovski helped establish Ohio’s first Aortic Aneurysm Awareness Day Saturday to shed light on the deadly condition.
Aortic aneurysms can be caused by high blood pressure, smoking and connective tissue disorders, Bozinovski said. Many people are not at risk for aortic aneurysms, but those with immediate family members who have had dissections or ruptures are at high risk, Bozinovski said.
Not everyone is eligible for the minimally invasive surgery; it depends on where the aortic aneurysm has occurred and other factors, such as a patient’s anatomy, he said.
Bozinovski said recovery time varies depending on the patient, but those who receive the new treatment have spent significantly less time in the hospital than patients who received open surgery.
McMullens, who received the traditional surgery, said he is still recovering at home, walking slowly on his own with a cane and driving to physical therapy twice a week to regain his strength in his legs on his own.
A little more than two weeks after his operation, McMullens celebrated his birthday in the hospital with medical center staff. He said he was happy to be alive.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated McMullens received the new minimally invasive aortic aneurysm treatment in July 2020. That procedure was not first performed until October 2020 and McMullens received traditional, open-chest surgery.
