APOLLO HEALTH CITY PERFORMS ‘AWAKE BY-PASS SURGERY’

Hyderabad, July 25, 2009: Apollo Health City announced the performing of a ‘BYPASS SURGERY ON A CONCIOUS PATIENT’ (also known as CONCAB) here today.

This latest surgical technique with the patient being conscious while undergoing the Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG), was performed on a 47 year old patient Mr. Salam Pathan Khan by a team of specialists led by Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Apollo Health City, Dr. Avinash Dal on July 16, 09 at Apollo Hospitals.

Hyderabad. This patient operated under the Rajiv Gandhi Arogyasree Scheme of the Government of Andhra Pradesh has fully recovered and is ready for discharge.
 
Dr.K.Hari Prasad, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad said “Apollo Hospitals which is the pioneer of open heart surgery in the country has continuously strived to bring in new techniques that make the surgery safer, quicker and cost-effective.

Beating heart surgery, minimally invasive surgery and a variety of other techniques have been introduced by Apollo Group of Hospitals. CONCAB is another technique that will help a section of patients undergoing bypass surgery”.
 
The highly complex bypass surgery is traditionally performed under general anesthesia on an unconscious patient.

Following surgery the patient is usually kept on a ventilator and woken up hours later.   However, in this case the patient underwent the surgery under regional anesthesia, WITHOUT GENERAL ANAESTHESIA being administered.

During the whole operation the patient was fully awake and comfortable. This new technique is performed under epidural anesthesia wherein only the chest part of the patient is anaesthetized.

Surgical dissection techniques are also modified to suit this type of anesthesia. The patient was stable and comfortable throughout the surgery. After the surgery he was bright and was able to take oral intake early and was pain free.
 
Dr Avinash Dal believes that CONSCIOUS CABG presents several benefits for patients and needs to be popularized as a technique for performing CABG.
 
CONCAB presents the following benefit for patients:
 
 
     1.  The recovery of the patient after CABG through CONCAB is as speedy as in the case of a General Surgery.
 
     2. The patients will not need a prolonged hospital stay in the intensive care unit (ICU).
 
     3. The patient is relatively pain free in the post-operative period
 
     4. The side effects of general anesthesia on the heart and lungs are avoided.
 
     5. The reduced hospital stay also brings the cost of hospitalization.
 
Dr.Dal adds “CONCAB cannot be performed on all cases. Choosing appropriate cases is critical to the success of CONCAB surgery program”.