Townsville Bulletin: Surgery solution [ 20sep06 ]

Townsville
Bulletin

Surgery solution

By SELINA SHARRATT
20sep06

SECRET ingredients inside a pharmacological solution may hold the key to changing the face of beating heart surgery the world over.

After six years of work on the project and constant visits to the operating theatres, the inventor – JCU scientist Associate Professor Geoffrey Dobson – has formulated a chemical solution that stabilises the heart without the use of a mechanical bypass machine.

"It's one of first inventions that is going to be clinically trialled from JCU research – ever, so when you take your basic science into the clinical scenario you really are a powerful voice to change the way open heart surgery is done," Professor Dobson said.

In a matter of weeks, the Townsville Hospital will seek a group of 20 patients requiring heart surgery who are willing to undergo the first human trials.

Ten patients will be operated on using the bypass procedure and 10 will have their heart stablised with the use of the solution and not with machinery.

There are two methods for open heart surgery procedures. The first is with the use of a heart/lung bypass machine and the second is to operate while the heart is still beating. Both methods have their pros and cons.

The bypass procedure has always been considered safer – because the heart isn't pulsating it makes it easier to operate.

But it can come at a cost.

Damage to heart cells can occur and irregular heart patterns may arise after surgery.

Although the beating heart method is more difficult there are better outcomes for patients because the heart is left to operate in its natural environment.

To the untrained eye the beating heart or 'off-pump' procedure is best described as an amazing artform – but if trials of the solution are successful that will all change.

Associate Professor Dr Inderjit Virdi will be the man charged with taking the solution out of the test tubes and into the theatres.

"The patients will be told it's an experimental test," Associate Professor Virdi said.

He said trying to operate on the heart when it was beating was like operating on a moving target.

The solution made it safer and a more predictable science for the surgeon.

The solution has far reaching implications for the medical field.

He said ethical approval had been given and it was simply a matter of time before basic trials began on humans.

"We haven't started to talk about it with patients but we are ready to go.

"What we will be doing at the early stage of the trial is using the solution but having the bypass machine as a back up," he said.

He said the solution not only stabilised the heart without machinery but it also sped up the heart's recovery.

The project further signifies the success of the close association between the JCU medical and research school and the Townsville Hospital.

If the trial is successful it has the potential for commercial and academic recognition never before seen in Townsville.