Surgeons Question Surgery’s Impact on Brain

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Anesthesiology/GeneralSurgery/55112?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-12-10&eun=g875301d0r

A fervent believer in a condition dubbed post-operative cognitive decline (POCD), Hogan said it’s time for surgeons to stop ignoring the evidence and begin developing a thorough and reasonable informed consent process to address these risks. Surgeons, while generally rejecting the “denier” mantle, are also cautious about embracing a new syndrome — especially one that might reflect poorly on their profession…

“I would disagree that cardiac surgeons are routinely discussing cognitive dysfunction,” said Robbin Cohen, MD, associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.”I don’t tell patients there’s a risk they’re not going to remember their passwords or their grandchild’s birthday. Who would submit to an operation after that?” …

“We’ve taken for granted for so many years that all of these anesthetic agents are so safe, and that all they’re doing is putting you to sleep and then waking you up. It seems like that should be such a natural thing. But you know, the reality of it is we’re artificially suppressing the nervous system.

“And it turns out that a lot of these medications are probably much more dangerous than we anticipated and probably have both short and long term effects that we really haven’t thought about, or maybe had attributed to the surgery and the heart lung machine,” Cohen said.