Drug Medical Information

GOODBYE" BYPASS -"HELLO' CIIEIATION! A HOSPITAL IS NOT A PLACE TO GET WELL - HOW SERIOUS? FOR HOW LONG?

How serious? For how long? Ask TV super-star Joan Rivers, whose husband Edgar, committed suicide post-bypass. "He was never the same after his bypasses," she told Phil Donahue in a recent interview. "Before that, he was always able to snap back from adversity. Nothing ever got him down. No matter what went wrong, he was ready to do battle - and then one day in Philadelphia he forgot everything he stood for. Just like that." Family members puzzled - or alarmed - when the bypass survivor is uncharacteristically rude, hostile, insensitive or noncommunicative, usually blame the undesirable change on the individual's reaction to a traumatic near-death experience. In reality, however, their loved one may be exhibiting the results of oxygen deprivation to the brain during the surgical procedure. Dr. Thorkel Aberg, a leading heart surgeon at Umea University Hospital in Umea, Sweden, who is taking part in the new studies, says, "I have no doubt there is subtle brain cell damage during these operations." When Dr. Maurice Albin, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio studied post-bypass brain pictures taken by the Trans-Cranial Doppler device, he discovered trapped debris in the brain's blood vessels, meaning a mini-stroke resulting in minor personality changes is a likely aftermath of the surgery. So much for the risks - how about the benefits?

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