Interesting (positive) results from recent Heart Lung Machine study

[T in YVR]

The notion of going on the Heart Lung machine has been an area of mild concern to me (and probably alot of others waiting for AVR!). I found this article and thought others in the Waiting Room might find it interesting. It was released about 1 month ago (was specific to people having bypass surgery).

For a straight AVR, does anyone know how long you are typically on the heart lung machine? I realize it will vary esp. if you have an aneurysm or other complications which may result in a longer operational procedure, but any insight here would be great.

Thanks,
Tony

http://news.yahoo.com/heart-lung-machines-prove-safe-even-elderly-155737078.html

 

[Heart Of The Sunrise]

Tony: Here are my Heart Lung machine and other numbers. I do not have any "pump-head" symptoms although I will admit that I too was very concerned about possible temporary neurological impairment post-surgery. My heart lung-bypass time was 3 hours 23 minutes. At Penn it is common place for heart patients to be placed under Deep Hypothermic Cardiac Arrest (DHCA). I had this as part of my procedure. If my understanding of it is correct here is a description. First, they chilled my body and blood down to 58 degrees. They then drained all of the blood from my body and then placed just my brain on the heart-lung machine.This enabled them to replace my aortic valve with a 25mm On-X valve and repair my aorta root with no blood pressure. The DHCA procedure was necessary in my situation since they had to replace my aortic root with a graft that was attached to my new aortic valve. Additional aortic graft material was needed to complete the reconstruction of my hemiarch. DHCA allows them to work on the heart with no blood pressure at all. During DHCA the patient not only has no blood pressure, but they also have no brain waves. Pretty amazing stuff! My cross-clamp time, the time my heart was separated from circulation was 2 hours and 27 minutes. Another benefit of DHCA was that since all of my blood was taken off at the top, there was no significant blood loss. My own blood was transfused back upon completion of my surgery. No need for the infusion of blood from the blood bank. I feel fine now 23 days post op. I have posted this link before. Interesting viewing for anyone in the waiting room. My surgeon is featured and he describes and performs the very surgery that I had. The only difference in the videos is that the patient went with a tissue valve and I went with the ON-X mechanical valve. Follow this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5jGG4sH2Cc:thumbup:

 

[Jkm7]

I worry about higher risk of developing alzheimers from having been on heart lung machine.
But what choice did we have?