Hong Kong patient in a critical condition after device malfunctions during brain operation

An elderly patient is in a critical condition after a machine for scanning blood vessels malfunctioned during an operation at a Hong Kong public hospital, with health authorities investigating the incident.

The Hospital Authority said on Thursday that the 66-year-old male patient suffering from a brain condition underwent a procedure at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei on Monday.

The condition – known as cerebellar arteriovenous malformation – occurs when arteries in the brain link directly to nearby veins without passing through the normal small vessels that should be between them.

In a normal situation, an angiography machine would show real-time images of the blood vessels in a patient’s brain, the authority said.

It said that during “the procedure when the patient was injected with tissue glue to control bleeding from a small blood vessel, the screen of the angiography machine did not show the normal flow of tissue glue in the blood vessel”.