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Has Congestive Heart Failure. Used Pigskin Valve And Repaired A Valve, On Pacemaker And Defibrillator. What Does This Mean?
My brother has congestive heart failure,he went from us being told to say our goodbye's to coming back.His Heart Dr told him that his heart isn't and can't be fixed.They just repaired it with putting in a pigskin valve and reapaired another valve.He also has a pacemaker/defibrillator.When he left hospital his heart was working at 45% he was told today that it is only working 27%.His surgery was less than a month ago.What does this mean?
Mon, 23 Sep 2013
Respected Sir/ Madam
Thanks for writing to HCM.
I am afraid a few things are not very clear from your query. However
1. If he had congestive cardiac failure then likelihood of Ejection fraction being 45% is low. Especially, if he has a combo device (pacemaker with defibrillator) the likelihood that he had a low pumping prior to surgery is more. At times severe leakage from mitral valve may lead to wrong estimations of pumping prior to surgery. Another reason for fall in pumping can be fresh damage to heart (infarction) or a phenomenon called stunning. When open heart surgery is done heart may at times gets stunned due to handling but this recovers usually in a few weeks.
Need to discuss with his primary cardiologist.
Sincerely
Sukhvinder
Thanks for writing to HCM.
I am afraid a few things are not very clear from your query. However
1. If he had congestive cardiac failure then likelihood of Ejection fraction being 45% is low. Especially, if he has a combo device (pacemaker with defibrillator) the likelihood that he had a low pumping prior to surgery is more. At times severe leakage from mitral valve may lead to wrong estimations of pumping prior to surgery. Another reason for fall in pumping can be fresh damage to heart (infarction) or a phenomenon called stunning. When open heart surgery is done heart may at times gets stunned due to handling but this recovers usually in a few weeks.
Need to discuss with his primary cardiologist.
Sincerely
Sukhvinder
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