| How Do Patients Think
about Their Operation Scar after Cardiac Surgery? |
(Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Iwakuni National
Hospital, Iwakuni, Japan)
| Yuji Kanaoka |
Kazuo Tanemoto |
Keiichiro Kuroki |
|
Because of the improved
safety of cardiovascular surgical techniques, the small incision
approach, called minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS), has
recently been employed. In some cases of MICS, however, prolonged
extracorporeal circulation time is required, and it is not minimally
invasive in some aspects. It has been reported that the most
prominent advantages of MICS is reducing the adverse consequences
of conventional full-sternotomy, such as pain, bleeding and risk
of mediastinitis, therefore it is helpful to reduce the period
of hospitalization and costs. The small incision and cosmetic
advantage is one of the objective advantages of MICS, so we interviewed
139 patients who underwent cardiac surgeries, to find out how
they think of their operation scar. Most (61.9%) of the patients
were not bothered by their scar, and the presence of keloid lesions
mattered move than the size of their wound. What the patients
considered to be most important were less pain after operation
and shorter hospital stay, not to mention good results of the
operation. The size and place of the wound ranked low in importance.
It is important to be aware of the difference in thinking between
the operative wound by patients and by the healthy medical staff.
Furthermore it is important to recognize the difference between
minimaly invasiveness and small incisions in cardiac surgery.
Jpn. J. Cardiovasc. Surg. 29: 134-138 (2000) |
|
