Rare heart surgery performed in state-run hospital

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 16 (PTI) A cardiac surgeryclaimed to be rare, done after stopping the activities of thepatient''s heart temporarily, was successfully performed on a70-year old woman in a private hospital here last week.

''Mini Bypass Resting Heart Surgery'' was performed on the''resting heart'' of the patient after her heart was stoppedtemporarily and its functions were sustained with thethe support of a heart-lung machine, a senior doctor atSree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences andTechnology (SCTIMST) said.

The surgery was performed with the aid of ''Performer CPBfrom Medtronics'', a heart-lung machine recently acquired bySCTIMST, a state-run autonomous hospital, and is the firstsuch device in the country, he said.

Dr K Jayakumar, head of the Department of Cardio VascularThorasic Surgery at the hospital, told a press meet here that''Resting Heart Surgery'' would reduce many side-effects of theconventional bypass surgeries.

"Though the conventional bypass surgery has beenpractised for about five decades, the method has someside-effects including neuro-cognitive decline in manypatients," Dr Jayakumar said.

"The side-effects are a result of the interaction betweenthe formed elements of blood coming into contact with the airand circulating in the long cardiopulmonary bypass circuit ofthe conventional heart-lung machine," he said.

Meanwhile, the ''Performer CPB from Medtronics'' checks anycontact between air and blood and minimises chances ofinfection or inflammation or air bubble entering the circuit,he said.

Compared to the conventional bypass method, the newprocedure draws only lesser amount of blood from the patientand minimise blood loss and damages to red blood cell,Jayakumar said.