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CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE is the result of the inability of an enlarged hear to pump blood properly. IN BASTISTA'S OPERATION, part of the heart's expanded muscle tissue is cut out. This reduces stress on the heart and allows the remaining muscle to pump more efficiently |
 EITHER I'M CRAZY OR THEY ARE WRONG," SAYS BATISTA ASSUREDLY. "AND I KNOW I'M NOT CRAZY |
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Batista estimates that about 60% of his patients live beyond two
years. While many doctors are appalled at such a high mortality
rate, Batista counters that his patients are so sick that their
mortality rate would be 100% if he did nothing. Many of the
patients he operates on would be considered beyond help by
American doctors. "I don't have any fatalities," he says. "I
only have survivors." McCarthy notes that the uproar over
Batista's high mortality rate is reminiscent of the controversy
that surrounded the doctors who first started performing heart
transplants. Now transplants are considered the state-of-the-art
procedure to help heart failure.
Although Batista is best known for his heart-trimming procedure, he is taking his beliefs about size to other areas as well. Eisenmenger syndrome is a disease caused by a septal defect, or hole in the heart. As the condition progresses, fresh and deoxygenated blood begin to mix, with the latter seeping through to the body, causing pressure to build in the lungs and stretching the lung tissue. In the U.S., the defect is usually closed up right away, but in the developing world children often grow up with the hole. Until now, the solution was a heart/lung transplant, which has a high mortality rate. Batista suggests constricting the pulmonary artery to restrict the amount of oxygenated blood flowing back into the lungs, thus enabling the lungs to relax and heal themselves. Again, he believes the body will operate well only if its organs are in proper proportion. As a medical innovator, Batista is variably described as a madman, a genius--or both. Says Dr. Noedir Stolf, director of the surgical division of the Heart Institute in Sao Paulo: "With his many more ideas for new surgeries, Dr. Batista is likely to keep controversy alive and well in the surgical world for a long time to come." On a visit to the U.S. to present his findings to leading cardiac surgeons, Batista was rushed off to Baltimore, Md., to see a 32-year-old woman with congestive heart failure who was not expected to survive the weekend. In a moment of reflection, Batista offered a glimpse of what makes him tick: "The big thing for me is that an institution like Johns Hopkins can't do anything for this woman. And here I am, all the way from Brazil, and I have something that may be able to save her." Sadly, the woman was too sick to save. But for millions of others worldwide, Batista's procedure offers hope where before there was none.
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