Rare Aortic Dissection Procedure – Brain Suspended For Salvaging Heart
Type A, aortic dissection is a rare heart condition that is noted in one patient amongst a million annually. This condition leads to the inner aortic layer ripping off from close to the heart to the descending aorta.
A 52-year old man of Indian origin was lately discharged from a hospital facility after having hoodwinked death. He was ailing from an atypical heart complication that had been repaired in a similarly unique procedure.
In an attempt to save his life, the surgeons placed him into an indeterminate state of suspended sentient, wherein he was not demonstrably animate according to the high-tech screening devices in the operating room. Providentially, the man did not face any neurological impediment due to the apparently radical procedure.
His ailment was atypical, but the doctors employed a one-off strategy for curing him. The patient concerned had been on hypertension medication for nearly a decade, never doubted that his aorta – the highly significant artery in the human body – was beginning to develop a rip or would split open along its inner wall that leads to the blood oozing out into and along the aortic wall. This condition is dubbed ‘Aortic dissection’. The blood pressure in such cases is known to soar in nearly 62-78% of the cases.
Subsequent to this condition occurring, the person developed abrupt and extreme chest pain. Following a doctor’s visit, he was advised to go in for this unusual form of bypass surgery that had a lesser than one percent risk factor, whereas treating this complication had a risk factor of nearly 25%.
However, the key concerns of the surgeons were not merely limited to the replacement of the seeping valve or the sickly section of the aorta. The surgeons had to be extra-vigilant regarding the carotid artery that transports blood to the brain and originates from the aortic arch that was being replaced.
Till the year 1950, aortic dissection was majorly an autopsy analysis. Hence, was the reason behind the resolution for employing ‘suspended animation’. The plan was to lower brain activity to a level wherein the surgeons got an opportunity for removing the unhealthy section of the aorta and fix a synthetic one in its place.
Suspended animation has been used since the past three decades, with doctors hailing from the New York Presbyterian Hospital employing it for treating brain aneurysm in 1990.
During this operative procedure, the surgeons initially replaced the man’s leaking aortic valve. The patient’s body temperature was lowered from his former temperature of 36.4 degrees celcius to 18 degrees celcius by passing his blood via a heart lung machine.
The patient was administered a jab of sodium pentothal or truth serum to lower brain activity to nil. The patient was gradually brought into a state of suspended animation.
In close to an hour’s time, without being perilous, his dissected aortic arch was swapped with a synthetic version.
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