Monaco Cardio-Thoracic Centre performs world first on young Montenegrin

20-year-old Andrija was saved by the first operation of its kind, thanks to a humanitarian partnership between the Association Monégasque de l’Ordre Souverain de Malte and the Cardio-thoracic Centre of Monaco.

Staff from Monaco’s Cardio-Thoracic Centre accomplished a medical first on 25 September last. Andrija, a twenty-year-old from Montenegro, suffered from a serious congenital heart condition that had considerably affected his health. After extensive consultation, the medical and surgical team decided to attempt a bold operation.

Professors René Prêtre, paediatric cardiac surgeon, and Sylvie Di Filippo, paediatric cardiologist, accompanied by Dr Armand Eker, cardiac surgeon, performed an unusually complex operation. The operation simultaneously treated two severe cardiac pathologies: the correction of a residual congenital malformation of the right heart and the treatment of heart failure in the left heart, with reconstruction of the left ventricle. It is a surgical combination that had never previously been performed, making the operation in the Principality a world first.

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Twenty-five years of humanitarian action

The medical feat was enabled by a long-term partnership that began twenty-five years ago. The Monegasque Association of the Sovereign Order of Malta, chaired by Jean Kerwat, the Monaco Cardio-Thoracic Centre, directed by Guy Nervo, and the CCM Study and Research Association, chaired by Dr Filippo Civaia, pool their resources in the field of humanitarian surgery.

Thanks to this support, in true Monegasque charitable tradition, young Andrija can now look forward to the future, with a significantly improved quality of life.