Life-Saving Heart Surgery May Dull the Life That's Saved
Life-Saving Heart Surgery May Dull the Life That's Saved
April 25, 2001 -- Heart bypass surgery has saved countless lives. At the same time, though, results of recent studies about loss of intellectual abilities after bypass surgery have both heart surgeons and patients alike concerned about the remaining quality of the life that is saved.
It is too soon to change any clinical practices, but evidence is mounting that there may be some link between bypass surgery and some types of thinking or memory problems after surgery, says Ola A. Selnes, PhD, associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md.
Selnes tells WebMD that when he and his colleagues tested 102 bypass patients five years after surgery they discovered that the patients scored lower in several tests of thinking and memory ability than they scored before the surgery. He says, however, that these changes could be caused by other factors such as age, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes -- all known risk factors for memory or thinking disorders.
"I think it is too soon to attribute these findings to bypass surgery," he says.
Selnes points out that the real culprit may be general anesthesia, not heart surgery. Some European researchers have published studies suggesting that the use of general anesthesia for any surgery is associated with decline in intellectual functions in some patients, he says. In those cases, however, the loss is identified early on and is usually transient. The losses seen at five years do not appear to be transient, he says.
The study by Selnes and his colleagues is published in the April issue of Archives of Neurology. It follows a study by a team of researchers from Duke University that was published in February in TheNew England Journal of Medicine. The Duke team reported that five years after bypass surgery 42% of patients studied had some decline in intellectual function.
"We don't know if patients with similar risk factors who didn't undergo bypass surgery would have the same degree of [thought] loss," says Selnes. He says that researchers at Johns Hopkins are now conducting a study that compares patients who had bypass surgery to patients who did not undergo surgery. "This study will be completed soon and data from it will be able to answer some of these questions," Selnes says.
Life-Saving Heart Surgery May Dull the Life That's Saved
April 25, 2001 -- Heart bypass surgery has saved countless lives. At the same time, though, results of recent studies about loss of intellectual abilities after bypass surgery have both heart surgeons and patients alike concerned about the remaining quality of the life that is saved.
It is too soon to change any clinical practices, but evidence is mounting that there may be some link between bypass surgery and some types of thinking or memory problems after surgery, says Ola A. Selnes, PhD, associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md.
Do these findings have you concerned? Speak up at WebMD's Heart Disease: Treatments and Support board, moderated by Laurie Anderson, RN, BSN.
Selnes tells WebMD that when he and his colleagues tested 102 bypass patients five years after surgery they discovered that the patients scored lower in several tests of thinking and memory ability than they scored before the surgery. He says, however, that these changes could be caused by other factors such as age, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes -- all known risk factors for memory or thinking disorders.
"I think it is too soon to attribute these findings to bypass surgery," he says.
Selnes points out that the real culprit may be general anesthesia, not heart surgery. Some European researchers have published studies suggesting that the use of general anesthesia for any surgery is associated with decline in intellectual functions in some patients, he says. In those cases, however, the loss is identified early on and is usually transient. The losses seen at five years do not appear to be transient, he says.
The study by Selnes and his colleagues is published in the April issue of Archives of Neurology. It follows a study by a team of researchers from Duke University that was published in February in TheNew England Journal of Medicine. The Duke team reported that five years after bypass surgery 42% of patients studied had some decline in intellectual function.
"We don't know if patients with similar risk factors who didn't undergo bypass surgery would have the same degree of [thought] loss," says Selnes. He says that researchers at Johns Hopkins are now conducting a study that compares patients who had bypass surgery to patients who did not undergo surgery. "This study will be completed soon and data from it will be able to answer some of these questions," Selnes says.
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