anonymous

13th October 2018

THE PASSAGE OF THE DENTURES - 8

  THE PASSAGE OF THE DENTURES - 8

DR H.L. CHULANI

A surgical operation is team work and the success of any operation depends on the cooperation and dedication of every member of the team. Let me relate a recent incident. We operated upon a patient with cancer of the rectum. In this case, the cancer was situated in the upper part of the rectum and because of the situation, the rectum could be removed and its ends joined together without the need of making an artificial opening the abdominal wall. The operation was carried out successfully without even using a unit of blood. At the end of the surgery, the anaesthetist suggested that since a unit of blood had been brought, and the procedure being of a major nature, the patient could benefit by using the unit. About an hour after the completion of the operation, the transfusion of blood was started. But hardly had some 50 mls been transfused when the patient started bleeding from the operation site, the stomach cavity and the urinary passage. He had developed a condition called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). In this case the cause of the DIC was contaminated blood supplied by the blood bank. The patient developed serious complications, but recovered from the DIC only to develop further complications. He had to be re-operated, the joint made following the removal of the rectum had to be taken down and an artificial opening constructed in the abdominal wall with little hope of ever reconstructing the rectum. This was a tragedy of monumental proportions because of error in collection or storage of blood. A test with the the second unit of blood confirmed our fears that the first unit was indeed faulty.