Doctors at KEM Hospital, Pune perform ‘Carotid Stenting’ on Child after leopard attack punctures neck artery

It was a normal evening for the farmer family from a village in Ahilyanagar district when a leopard grabbed their eight year old son by the neck, picked him up and dragged him about 100 feet into the fields. His father followed the leopard on his bike, continuously honking which somehow got the leopard to leave the child and run away. The family took their son to a local clinic where he was given primary treatment and was brought to KEM Hospital, Pune for further treatment.

Explaining the case, Dr. Anand Alurkar, Interventional Neurologist at KEM Hospital, said that this attack by the leopard had resulted in injuries to the neck of the child and punctured the main carotid artery supplying blood to the brain. This created a bulge in the artery called pseudoaneurysm where the weakened wall ballooned out, which could have ruptured, leading to fatal bleeding.

The condition was confirmed with a Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA) which is an advanced angiography of the brain vessels done in a Cathlab.

We decided to go for Carotid Stenting which is a minimally invasive procedure to treat carotid artery diseases done via the the groin artery. The stenting was done with a ‘Covered Stent Graft’ which sealed the puncture in the artery instantly. The boy was discharged within 2 days and is back to his playful self since then.

Dr. Alurkar said that although Carotid Stenting is routinely done in KEM hospital for the past 2 decades for blockages in the carotid artery in elderly Stroke patients, the patient’s tender age and the circumstances of the neck injury make this a rare and interesting case.