It’s Medical Monday!

Welcome back, everyone! Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve had some great posts about the various types of surgeries that surgeons can do to fix up people’s hearts. Sometimes, however, patients may need additional surgeries after their first one, which can come with their own unique challenges. For this week’s Medical Monday, we’ll take a closer look at these reoperative surgeries and what needing one of these operations means for patients.

How is Reoperative Surgery Different from Your First Surgery?

At its core, surgery changes the patient’s body in order to fix whatever problem needs to be fixed. These changes in your body can provide extra challenges that need to be overcome should you require another surgery in the future. These include:

1. Altered Anatomy - once you have a surgery, your anatomy is never the same. Your surgical team needs to account for your new anatomy while planning their strategy for the reoperation to ensure that they can successfully accomplish the goals of the surgery. 

2. Scar Tissue - The body naturally produces scar tissue during the healing process after surgery. This tissue is often very dense and can be extensive, making the operation more difficult by hiding important landmarks and structures. This scar tissue, also known as adhesions, can also fix different structures together, making it much harder to separate and manipulate things throughout the operation. 

3. Age and Other Medical Conditions - Patients who need reoperations often require them years or even decades after their initial operations. Increasing age significantly impacts our ability to heal and overcome the stresses of major surgery, and older patients are more likely to have other medical conditions that can make surgery more complicated or risky. Because of this, surgeons need to be very careful when evaluating patients for reoperations to ensure that the risks of the surgery don’t outweigh any benefits the patient might get from it. 

An example of what postoperative scar tissue/adhesions can look like. Similar changes can happen in the chest after open-heart surgery. Credit: https://www.londongeneralsurgeryclinic.co.uk/abdominal-adhesions.php

For these reasons, reoperations usually take longer and are higher risk for complications than first-time operations. However, they can be, and often are, life-changing for patients who truly need them. Therefore, it is vital for the patient and the surgical team to work together to determine if doing another surgery is the right solution for the situation at hand. 

That’s all for this week, folks. Thank you so much for joining me here! Hope to see you again next time! 

Signing off,

Anirudh Karla