A British patient had heart valves transplanted from bovine tissue during an operation without general anesthesia.
- The installed valves were made from bovine tissue
- The patient’s condition precludes performing general anesthesia
It is a doubly remarkable intervention which has just been carried out at the University Hospital of Coventry in the United Kingdom. As the Daily Mirror reports, a 74-year-old man, John Smallwood, received a double transplant of heart valves made with cow heart tissue and that while remaining awake throughout the operation! Usually transplanted heart valves are made with pig tissue. But since an authorization granted in 2004 by the FDA, these can also be made with bovine pericardium, a material which lasts longer (15 to 20 years) than that derived from pigs and which, being of larger diameter, can adapt to any patient regardless of size.
The patient stayed awake
John Smallwood, a British paramedic, had already undergone open-heart surgery nine years ago for a mitral valve. But she started to leak again and this time, no more question of open heart surgery: her condition made general anesthesia very dangerous. It was therefore under local anesthesia that the operation took place and the patient remained awake throughout the intervention, with the risk, if he did not remain perfectly still, of causing a fatal error. The implantation of the valves was done through the groin for the aortic valve and using a special needle to pass the mitral valve into the heart.
“We kept telling John what was going on, otherwise he might have become anxious during such a long operation. He was very brave and cooperated with everything. His mental toughness got him through something quite unique “said heart surgeon Nishant Gangil who led the operation.
Two days of recovery
As for the patient, he was able to return home after two days of recovery. “I can’t believe how much better I feel now, it’s like being reborn,” he told the Daily Mirror.
