How football manager Gerard Houllier survived heart surgery
by ROGER DOBSON, Daily Mail
Liverpool football manager Gerard Houllier was rushed to hospital to undergo emergency heart surgery. He had suffered an aortic dissection, which required an 11-hour operation to repair.
Here, we ask a cardiac expert to explain the procedure.
Graham Cooper, consultant heart surgeon at the Northern Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, says:
Aortic dissection can be one of the most difficult operations to perform as a cardiac surgeon. As a result, these kinds of operation can take a long time - seven or eight hours is not unusual.
'Death can occur at any time from the moment the tear occurs: it could be hours, days, weeks or months. It can also lead to heart attacks and stroke, and to a cutoff in the supply of blood to limbs which can be fatal, too.
'The object of surgery is to repair the system so that blood flows normally again in the aorta, and this can be achieved in a number of ways. It may involve replacing a section of the tubing with a piece of fabric tubing like Dacron that is stitched and glued into place.
'If the problem is very close to the heart, the aortic valve may leak and need to be replaced, too, as well as other pieces of the aorta that go to the back, head and neck.
'During surgery, the patient is kept on a heart-lung machine which their blood goes into. Here it is oxygenated and put back into the patient. The machine takes over from the heart and lungs, so that we can stop the heart beating and the patient stays alive.
'There are times when we do not want any blood flowing in the arteries. It is detailed work in a small area and is easier to do when there is no blood around.
'In order to do that, we cool the patient down to 14 or 15 degrees C (normal body temperature is 37 C). It takes about one to two hours to do this, and an hour more to warm them again after surgery.
'In these hypothermic temperatures when the brain is asleep, the body's demand for oxygen is reduced so that it can tolerate a period of about 20 minutes when it has no blood supply at all. That is enough time for us to do the work that we need to.
'We are working on very delicate tissue and tiny areas. Some of the tissue does not take stitches easily and it is time-consuming work.'
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