Page 4 - PawsandHooves-Autumn2019

Specialised equipment and expertise enables RVC to perform increasing number of open-heart surgeries on dogs
T he cardiac surgery team at the QMHA is performing cutting-edge open-heart surgery on an increasing number of
dogs each year, thanks to specialised equipment and expertise available at the Royal Veterinary College.
One particular procedure, putting in a patch
graft to the heart, is performed at only a handful of hospitals and practices across the world. As such, our team treat patients who travel from far and wide, such as Percy who came from France for this rare life-saving surgery.
Percy the Boston terrier was only 18 months old when he was referred to the QMHA from his cardiologist in France. He had been diagnosed with a rare condition called double-chambered
2
right ventricle. This is a congenital defect where the right pumping chamber (ventricle), is divided into
two chambers, instead of one, by extra tissue. This causes a restriction
of blood flow through the chamber and blood cannot drain into the heart
properly. Blood starts to back up around the body and fluid builds
up in the abdomen and around the lungs. Affected animals can be
extremely unwell and can show
symptoms such as muscle and weight loss, breathlessness, fainting and lethargy.
Percy was unable to exercise and was collapsing frequently. He had already been put on medication to manage his condition by his cardiologist - but the medication can’t cure the problem and will only get the animal so far. For Percy, there was no other choice but to attempt the surgery; he simply would not have survived on the medicine alone.
When Percy arrived at the RVC in June 2018, he was incredibly thin and weak and was in heart failure despite his medication. He was fainting up to three times a day as his heart struggled to cope with the condition.
The RVC cardiac surgery team set to work
on the patch graft as soon as possible. This complicated surgery involved putting Percy on a heart lung bypass machine which does the job of the heart and lungs during surgery, taking the blood from the body and adding to it before putting it back.
While the heart was on bypass, the team opened the right side of Percy’s heart and made an incision across the obstruction in the chamber, cutting out the restrictive tissue. A patch of Gore-Tex was sewn in to enlarge the chamber and enable the blood to flow freely through the chamber, reducing pressure and alleviating the effects this had been having throughout the rest of Percy’s heart and body.
Paws & Hooves Autumn 2019