Pope Francis underwent abdominal surgery to remove a blockage in his intestine. It had been causing him severe pain for months.
A part of his intestine was caught in a hernia, which emerged as a result of one of the operations he had undergone in Argentina.
DR. LOURDES AGUILAR TEJERO
When you open the abdominal wall with an incision, the area does not heal well. Rather, it heals in a weaker way. So, as the months and years go by, it's more likely that some of the intestinal contents will leak through that weakened part of the abdominal wall and cause a hernia.
One of the main ways to prevent this is to put mesh, that is a mesh-like prosthesis to prevent all the contents from coming out.
In fact, that is exactly what the Pope's surgeons did in this most recent surgery. After the three-hour procedure, they explained the operation.
SERGIO ALFIERI
Gemelli University Hospital
We proceeded to clear these adhesions, these internal scars and we unraveled—what we doctors say—the skin that was attached to the adhesions that was causing this intestinal difficulty.
The operation forced Pope Francis to face one of his fears: anesthesia. He had some side effects with it after his colon surgery in 2021. For that reason, he had been putting off knee surgery. But the doctors confirm that everything went well.
POPE FRANCIS
You don't mess with anesthesia, you know?
DR. LOURDES AGUILAR TEJERO
The problem with general anesthesia is that it is a total anesthesia where very powerful drugs are usually used. So one of the main problems with older people is that they tend to have various conditions and they do not recover from anesthesia as well as a young person of 30 years old.
This is the third time Pope Francis has entered Rome's Gemelli Hospital since 2021.
RM
TR: KG
