Death of Humphrey Lyttleton after aortic aneurysm surgery
What can you say? People like Humph are supposed to live for ever. He was the Prince of Irreverent Humour; completely irreplaceable. I expect a minute’s silence at a certain Underground station and people to throw flowers in front of the funeral cortege as it wends its solemn way down the Mall. The Queen must surely make an announcement.
When I were a lad, we’d get one or two ruptured AAAs (triple As, Abdominal Aoritc Aneurysms) into the resus room every month. Most of them died. The aorta is the large blood vessel that leads from the top of the heart, and curves down toward the rest of the body, throwing off smaller branches on the way.
In the abdomen, it should be no more than about 4-5mm in diameter in an adult. An aneurysm is a weakening in the wall of a blood vessel – in the case of the aorta, it means that the vessel bulges. This bulge can be measured using ultrasound. Once it has got to a certain critical size, planned surgery can be undertaken to repair the defect. Before this sort of ultrasound screening, the first thing most people knew about their AAA was when it ruptured.
Mortality from planned surgery is a lot lower then from emergency repair, but it’s still a risky operation. Risk factors include ‘co-morbidity’ (other diseases the patient – usually elderly – may suffer from), and also the exact level at which the aneurysm lies, and how extensive it is. Some aortic aneurysms extend into the thoracic aorta (within the chest) and these are particularly deadly.
I’m not of course privy to the exact details of Mr. Lyttleton’s case, but it would seem that the combination of age and surgical risk were simply too much. A loss to us all.
