check for Dr. Galantowicz
he helped develop a ped--heart lung machine
614-722-3111 is his office number. He has operated on a number of babies whose parents are one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

__________________
Yvette Bunch

Thanks Yvette, would you happen to have his email address or normal address. I found ringing USA very hard due to all the time zones compared to ours. (Rang hemopure)
Thanks

Regarding pediatric open heart. We have successfully done cardiac surgery without blood. Body wieght is a significant factor in the outcome in regards to blood transfusion, as well as the pump priming volume. Feel free to consult our chief pediatric perfusioninst Mark Henderson at mark.henderson@uhhs.com.

Thanks Amelia but I think you have misunderstood. My son was on the infant heart lung bypass for a heart operation 18yrs ago (he is now 18) and it was performed without blood as we are JWs. We had to flee the country back then and go to england. The situation is, I am part of a volunteer organisation that support families with a cardiac problem. I cannot "sell" the idea to people on purchasing this unit on a JW policy of don't have blood. I know that there must be info out there as to why using a pead unit is a better option - not just the blood issue, that is our reason for wanting this unit. It must be better in more general terms as well and that is what I am after.

Regarding pediatric open heart surgery and heart lung bypass machines or consoles. Amelia and her program are world leaders in transfusion avoidance in all children and include the very small to large children. The console itself (The heart lung machine) is the same for all of these cases, "The Pump" is just a series of roller pumps and possibly a centrifugal pump with bells and whistles on a set of wheels that allow different size disposable tubing's (circuits) to function (circulate) depending on the patient size. It is the circuit that is the Most Important Factor in making the surgery successful and of course a good Perfusionist and Surgeon. The Console itself is not as much a factor as is circuit size (All pumps can except small 1/4 inch tubing). Some of the most renown heart centers in the world use the same pump consoles on both adults and newborns in the same day in the same room, Its only the disposable "Circuit or Tubing Set" and its holders that is different for these cases necessary to accomplish this goal. Having a dedicated heart lung machine for pediatric cases with the specific holders permanently attached that are necessary to mount smaller tubing sets would be a luxury for your perfusionists (not having to change out holders) but not necessarily a necessity. Of course if you have the funding to do this, it would be like having a new car and just as expensive. If you have further questions please feel free to contact a pediatric perfusionist at AMSECT (the National Organization) or an expert like the chief pediatric perfusionist Mark Henderson at mark.henderson@uhhs.com. Good luck!

__________________
Keith A. Samolyk CCP, LCP
Global Blood Resources LLC
P.O. Box 383 Somers CT. 06071
Tel (800) - 942 - 9243
Fax (860) - 285 - 0289
www.mybloodfirst.com

Thanks a lot for the info. I suppose we will have to direct our money elsewhere. I know at our hospital we have a huge problem with cardiac JW children and as I said earlier I do not know one that has come out of open heart without being transfused. Our son had a stent and a p/maker put in a year ago when he was 17 and were given the riot act read to us that blood would definetely be used if needed!!!

Maybe you should share the No Blood Medicine Meets the Challange and Patient Needs and Rights Videos. Share the How Can Blood Save Your Life Brochure and the
Transfusion Medicine—Is Its Future Secure In the August 2006 issue of Awake.

And Share the Following Info

“Cardiac Operation for Congenital Heart Disease in Children of Jehovah’s Witnesses”Under the above title, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Volume 89, 1985, published the results of heart operations performed on 110 children of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It stated: “No patient received any blood or blood products during hospitalization.” The patients ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years. Although complications occurred in ten patients, “none of these could be attributed to failure to transfuse.”

Then why are some surgeons reluctant to operate on children without the use of blood? The article states: “One concern in children is that the volume of crystalloid required to prime the extracorporeal circuit [heart-lung machine] would result in a degree of hemodilution [blood dilution] incompatible with adequate oxygen delivery. Another is that blood loss from operation and the coagulopathies [blood-clotting problems] associated with congenital heart disease could not be managed successfully without blood components.”

However, in these cases with Witness children, how was the heart-lung bypass machine primed without blood? The circuit was primed with a crystalloid solution, using at first dextrose in water and then in later operations dextrose in Ringer’s lactate. Blood was not necessary.

What were the findings from these operations on Witness children? “The results demonstrate that excessive hemodilution and postoperative hemorrhage are not major problems, even in small patients, and that failure to transfuse is rarely a factor in the morbidity or mortality of operation.”—Italics ours.

Of course, small children start off with a lower blood volume, which means a higher rate of dilution when the bypass machine primed with crystalloid is used. In spite of that, during the operation and the first 24 hours thereafter, “the smaller patients . . . lost no greater percentage of their total hemoglobin than the larger patients.”

Were the surgeons satisfied with the overall outcome of these operations? “The results were not compared with those in children freely transfused to support our impression that children of Jehovah’s Witnesses usually do as well or better. Nevertheless, the low morbidity and mortality we observed raises the question of whether similar techniques of hemodilution and blood conservation might be used more extensively in children undergoing cardiac operations.”

To what conclusion did the Houston, Texas, team of surgeons arrive? “Our results demonstrate that cardiac operations and cardiopulmonary bypass can be safely performed in children without blood transfusion.”
There are inherent dangers in blood transfusion, such as the risk of transmitting hepatitis, syphilis, and AIDS. The thousands of cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide who have been treated over the last few decades establish that there is a sound basis for alternative bloodless therapy that avoids such complications.

Much of the earliest data available on bloodless surgery were collected from patients who refused blood transfusions for religious reasons, primarily the Jehovah's Witness community. Dr. Denton Cooley performed the first bloodless open heart surgery on a Jehovah's Witness patient in 1962. Fifteen years later, he and his associate published a report of more than 500 cardiac surgeries in this population, documenting that cardiac surgery could be safely performed without blood transfusion.

This was later reported in the American Medical Journal and their mortality rate was lower.

Share with them the information Englewood Hospital In New Jersey USA it is world renowned as leader in bloodless surgery and has the lowest mortality rate for cardiac surgery in the world and they attribute this to their use of bloodless surgery. www.englewoodhospital.com

The following was in the seventies

Under the direction of the University of Munich’s Institute for Surgical Research, 31 clinics in southern Bavaria made a three-year study comparing patients given blood transfusions with those receiving blood “substitutes.” The findings indicate that such “substitutes” result in far fewer complications than do transfusions. In the use of 200,000 units of blood “substitutes,” complications arose only in 0.033 percent of the cases. However, several dangers of blood transfusions were cited in the report. It was said that in some large cities every 10th transfusion patient was infected with hepatitis.

There are hospitals in the USA that do bloodless heart surgery on children.

One is Emanual Children's Hospital

Legacy Health - Legacy Health

This was in the early ninties; The director of hematology at Australia’s Sydney Royal North Shore Hospital discusses concerns over blood transfusion safety in the Medical Journal of Australia. He believes that links exist between cancer, infection, and blood transfusion. The Brisbane Courier-Mail quotes this leading doctor as saying: “A blood transfusion was previously seen as a gift of life, but the tables have been turned and the general perception now is that bloodless surgery and the avoiding of transfusion may be the gift of life. New data suggesting that blood transfusion at the time of surgery may be a risk factor for cancer recurrence and post-operative infection are a matter of concern.”