Bypass surgery without blood transfusion

Chennai | Friday | 18th January, 2019

Summary:

For Jehovah’s Witnesses, transfusion of blood is against their religious belief.After a lot of analysis, cardiothoracic surgeons at Sri Ramakrishna Hospitals managed to perform a coronary bypass surgery on the man without giving him any blood transfusion, around three weeks back. “His condition, which included multiple blocks, did not let us perform a stent angioplasty or a balloon angioplasty,” Dr Thiagarajamurthy said.“We decided to perform a surgery which minimises blood loss, as much as possible,” he added. The surgery was done minimising blood loss at every avenue possible,” he added.The doctors took both his mammary arteries, fashioned them into a Y-fashion, and connected it to the coronary vessels, so they can supply blood to the heart instead of the coronary arteries. COIMBATORE: A 60-year-old man, who was diagnosed with multiple blocks in both his coronary arteries, approached a hospital in Coimbatore stating that he was ready to undergo any treatment provided there was no blood transfusion involved in it.The man, who is a Jehovah’s Witness by faith, was hesitant to even have his own blood taken in advance, frozen and re-transfused into him. They bypassed his blocked arteries, with arteries taken from his mammary glands, instead of his vein from his legs, which is a more common procedure.When the patient first approached Dr Thiagarajamurthy in the hospital with his condition and a specific request of not giving blood transfusion, doctors were hesitant..