Is a chance of brain dead during open heart surgery?

[Thennarasu]

Hi Doctor,

I am Thennarasu from India.
I need your help clearing one doubt.
My nephew(18 Years student) who was recently hospitalized at private hospital for heart surgery.His problem is,He was having extra muscle in his heart.But he was not having any troubles before because of this extra muscle presence.Since Doctors suggested that muscle has to be removed from heart.otherwise, it may create problem in future we agreed for a operation as a precautionary measure depending on doctor's words.while doing operation doctors caused brain dead to him.He is no more now with us.we are deeply worried because of this sudden incident.we are not able to digest his loss as he was living normal life as other boys.Also not clear of how he could have died? Could you please tell me how doctors could have caused brain dead so that our boy is dead? also please give me a summary of what are the possibilities  for brain dead during open heart surgery?

Please help us to know about our boy's death.

Thanks in advance,
Thennarasu.s"

[grendslori]

I canot put my email on the forums, but you can write to me at my email through medhelp.

[Thennarasu]

Hi,

Sorry for late reply.

I think if you see my nephew's treatment summary and postmortem report you can be able to clear our doubts exactly.Please let me know how i can send/attach those reports for your perusal.Kindly let me know your email id so that i can send all details.Please help me out.

my email id: s.***@****
Thanks,
Thennarasu.s

[grendslori]

I am so sorry for your family's loss. By the description you gave it sounds like this young man had something called Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy which means that the heart walls are too thick and in some people, the walls grow and cause obstructions in the heart. Sometimes surgery is done to get rid of that obstruction; it is called a myectomy. This is a serious surgery and a person can lose a lot of blood during this type of surgery. Left untreated, a person can have a sudden death event, so the surgery was probably necessary. A heart lung machine would have been used to circulate the blood around the body during surgery. When someone has a thickened heart wall and something is done to irritate the muscle cells in the wall, arrhythmias, or irregular heart beats, can be a result. They can be life threatening and that is probably what lead to your nephew's death. Also, this type of heart disease can make it difficult to 'bring a person back' if they have passed away. I have no doubt that the doctors did everything they could to save him as it is hard for any doctor to lose a young person, in the prime of his life. I your nephew did have Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy then the entire family must be screened and cleared from this disease as it is most often genetic in nature.