Portrait
Text: Bertrand Tappy
Photo: Gilles Weber

Migration: Dr Sébastien Déglise, surgeon

Dr Sébastien Déglise spent one year in France to learn a new surgical technique.

One of your specialities is aortic endoprosthesis implantation. What more can you tell us about that?

I treat patients who’ve been diagnosed with an abdominal or thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm. This dilation of the aorta can rupture and cause often fatal haemorrhaging.

Treatment requires surgery, but the alternative to traditional open surgery is the implantation of an endoprosthesis. The spring-like tube is inserted through the femoral artery by way of small incisions in the groin.

The doctor is guided to the aneurysm site by imaging and places the endoprosthesis in the aorta to cover the swelling and prevent it from rupturing. The hospital stay is reduced considerably and the consequences are much less serious for the patient. Plus, these implants are standard, so less costly and more readily available. Sometimes the aneurysm is located too close to the kidneys. A traditional prosthesis can’t be used without the risk of covering the renal arteries.

Which is not the case with the new “complex” prosthesis.

That’s right. The endoprosthesis developed in recent years can be used for more hard-to-treat aneurysms that involve the renal or visceral arteries.

You had to go abroad to learn this technique?

I spent one year at Bordeaux University Hospital in the Vascular Surgery Service headed by Dr Midy and Dr Ducasse. At the Lausanne University Hospital, I worked with my colleague Dr Saucy to present the project to our department, where we had to take into account medical and financial factors. By January 2015, we had already implanted nearly 10 complex endoprostheses and come up with different ways of teaching this technique to our colleagues.



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Bio

Last name: Déglise

First name: Sébastien

With the chuv since: 2002

Title Associate: physician with the Vascular Surgery Service