A UNC patient will be the first in the country to undergo the placement of an A-A-A Endograft. The surgery will be performed tomorrow by Dr. Mark Farber, an associate professor and program director of the vascular surgery fellowship at UNC.

Dr. Farber says the new device enables the medical field to treat more patients suffering from Aneurysms in a less invasive way. 

The device is properly called an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (A-A-A) Endovascular Graft, and it was approved by the FDA for clinical trials in November 2008.  Another advantage of this new device, Farber says, is that the size offers a less chance of damaging the artery. 

Although tomorrow’s surgery is the first of its kind, Farber says it is not that much different than performing the same surgery with a larger device, and adds that his patient qualifies as the perfect candidate for whom the device was created.

Dr. Farber's patient is a 61 year old African American female who works as a nursing assistant for a local agency and is the sole provider of two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.