Ramtin Cardiovascular Research and Treatment Center, is a cardiovascular hospital located in Velenjak, northern Tehran, Iran. Professor Alireza Esmat, cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgeon, has been performing open heart surgery at Ramtin since the hospital opened in 1995. With 80 beds, including 15 ICU beds and three operating theatres, the private hospital also runs a transplant research unit.
Owner and lead heart surgeon at Ramtin Hospital, Alireza Esmat is known for having performed the first tracheal stenosis operation in Iran, saving the life of the patient, a 27-year-old female, and the only survivor of a car accident. The surgical team succeeded in employing a cartilage graft to enhance the tracheal luminal diameter where earlier tests had revealed an aggregation of fibrotic and granulation tissue at the posterior aspect of the trachea at a length of 8–10 cm.
Due to the linear extension of fibrosis, neither a stenotic area resection nor end-end anastomosis were feasible while the implementation of synthetic material or metallic stent was also not possible. So, the surgical team devised a new technique, employing a cartilage graft to enhance the tracheal luminal diameter. A 10 cm length of the floating 12th rib was extracted, implemented at the anterior aspect of the trachea with interrupted nylon suturing to reconstruct the stenotic area.
Professor Alireza Esmat, who studied in Tehran and the United States, has received several plaques and awards from the United Nations and Iran’s Khwarizmi Scientific Foundation, performed this operation in 2007.