New Open Heart Surgery Keeps Patient Awake During Surgery

In Health Watch:Surgeons in India have performed open-heart surgery on a patient who was wide awake throughout the entire procedure.Kendis Gibson explains why this kind of surgery could be the wave of the future.Staying awake for heart surgery isn't for the "faint of heart" but Catholic priest Father Bolmax Periera was excited.

Fr. Periera says, 'maybe I will be able to see my own heart.'A sheet actually shielded Father Periera from seeing the surgery, but he was able to sense doctors pushing and pulling inside his chest cavity.An epidural injection into his spine prevented him from feeling any pain below his neck.One of the advantages of keeping a patient conscious during heart surgery is that it gives doctors an early warning sign of any problems.

Dr. Allan Stewart says, 'sometimes when we have people asleep it takes several hours for them to wake up if they had a stroke during the operation it's too late. We've lost that window to intervene on them.Surgeons at the Fortis hospital in Bangalore replaced a defective heart valve in Father Periera's chest.They stopped his heart and his breathing -- a machine took over his blood circulation.During the whole procedure, he was able to speak to his doctors - at one point he even asked for a pillow.Dr. Vivek Jawali says, 'they are very comfortable on the table.

I did not even put any music on his ears. He was listening to what we were talking about.'Fr. Periera, 'One thing I head them say is, "This is the heart." So I knew my heart was wide open.'But doctors here in the United States say there are major drawbacks to the procedure - especially if something does go wrong during the surgery and doctors have to put in a breathing tube during a crisis.Dr. Stewart says, 'to institute that In the middle of a heart lung operation would increase the risk of infection, would increase the psychological trauma.'Still, because he didn't have to recover from general anesthesia, Father Periera was able to start his recovery shortly after surgery.

Doctors in the U.S. also routinely insert a probe down the throat to monitor the progress of open-heart surgery.They say it would be very uncomfortable to have a tube sitting in a patient's throat while he or she was awake.

source: keyc