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Newsroom
Trillium In The News
Mississauga News
Trillium is first with heart pump
May 26, 2004
It was a Canadian first, and you could say Trillium Health Centre took it to heart.
That’s because the first-ever heart surgery in Canada using new state-of-the-art pump technology was performed at the hospital’s Mississauga site recently.
Trillium doctors say the new pump bypass technology will mean far better patient outcomes and reduced stays in hospital.
“It not only packs the technology of the conventional Volkswagen-size heart and lung machine into a unit the size of a blender, but it will offer better patient outcomes and improve patient access to surgery,” said Dr. Gopal Bhatnagar, chief of cardiovascular surgery at Trillium and one of three cardiac surgeons who have operated while using the mini-pump.
This latest heart-lung bypass machine dramatically reduces the need for blood transfusions. Bhatnagar called it “the greatest advance in pump technology in the last decade.”
Because the mini-pump has less tubing and no reservoir, there is little or no blood dilution. This reduces the need for transfusions during and after surgery.
Bhatnagar expects the number of transfusions can be cut in half. Trillium’s first mini-pump patient was on March 3 – a 77-year-old Mississauga man with coronary artery disease.
“He came through with flying colours and required no blood transfusions at all,” said Bhatnagar.
The doctor says a reduction in the number of transfusions will have a significant impact on patient outcomes. Bhatnagar said that patients who receive transfusions, thereby diluting their blood, have a 70-per-cent higher risk of death than those who don’t receive them. Fewer transfusions reduces the stress on a patient’s immune and other systems, cuts the risk of infection, and the risk of post-operative complications.
Bhatnagar expects that use of the mini-pump during surgery will lead to reduced hospital stays as patients recover more quickly. That, in turn, will allow Trillium to treat more people needing bypass surgery. The average waiting time at Trillium now for non-emergency heart surgery is about two months. The provincial average is six months, according to the CardiacCareNetwork of Ontario.
Trillium expects to perform about 200 cardiac bypass operations
this year using the new mini-pump.