Sydney 1986
Experts hold out little hope
From correspondents in Rome
February 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12366289-2,00.html
MEDICAL specialists hold little hope that Pope John Paul II will recover from the health crisis that forced doctors to perform a tracheotomy yesterday.
"The tracheotomy on the Pope was inevitable at this point," Professor Bruno Bergamasco, Head of Neuroscience at the University of Turin, said.
"The relapse of the flu within a few days of his first hospitalisation at the Gemelli is a sign that doesn't leave a great deal of hope,
"The latest hospitalisation is the demonstration that his immune system is no longer in a position to fight infections."
Professor Bergamasco's department includes Italy's centre for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.
The condition of the Pope, hospitalised for the second time in a month after suffering a relapse of his flu, is complicated by his Parkinson's disease.
"Parkinson's disease not only exposes, but predisposes the patient to infections of the primary airways: influenza in these patients is the primary cause of death," Professor Bergamasco said.
"The principle risk, in these cases, is a pulmonary oedema, a sort of drowning of the lungs. Which unfortunately is always the last sign."
Professor Corrado Manni, the Pope's anaesthetist during his life-saving surgery after he was shot in 1981, described his latest setback was "exertion after exertion on an organism which is undoubtedly weakened".
"The two episodes, yesterday's and the one at the beginning of February, are real respiratory crises," he said.
"Air is not getting in via the airways of the lungs and therefore he runs the risk of a cardio-circulatory arrest.
"The heart is no longer being oxygenated by the air which must pass through the mouth, the larynx and the trachea and then the lungs, and therefore there's a risk of death by suffocation."
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