Heart Surgery

Heart surgery is a procedure done on the heart and or the great vessels connected to it performed by a cardiac surgeon. Most of the time, it is done to treat ischemic heart disease complications, correct congenital heart disease or treat valvular heart disease created by various causes. Its development has greatly reduced the mortality rate caused by heart disease to a relatively low level.

Heart surgery has several types which are discussed below.

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG)
This is the most common type of heart surgery. It improves the blood flow to the heart and is used for people with severe coronary artery disease (CAD).

Transmyocardial Laser Revascularization (TLR)
This type of surgery is not common and is used to treat angina when no other treatment works. In this treatment the surgeon uses laser to make channels in the heart muscle to allow oxygen-rich blood to flow from a heart chamber directly into the heart muscle.

Valve Repair or Replacement
For the heart to function correctly blood must flow in one direction only and the heart's valves make this possible.
Valve repair is done when not enough blood flow trough the vale into the artery.

Arrhythmia Treatment
Arrhythmia is a problem with the heartbeats speed or rhythm. In this condition the heart can beat too fast or too slow.
This can usually be treated with medicine first but if medicine doesn't work then a surgery is required.

Aneurysm Repair
Aneurysm involves an abnormal bulge in the wall of the artery or heart muscle.
To treat aneurysm surgery is necessary to replace the weak section of the artery or heart wall with a patch or graft.

Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs)
These are mechanical pumps that help the heart or take over its pumping function. VADs are placed when ones heart cann't pump sufficient blood to support the entire body.

Heart Transplant
This is a surgery in which the diseased heart is replaced with a healthy heart from a donor. This is done to patients whose heart is damaged enough or is too weak as it can no longer pump enough blood to meet the body's requirements.

New ways in doing heart surgery have been developed in recent years. A patient can now have open heart surgery or minimally invasive heart surgery depending on one's heart problem, general health as well as other considerable factors.

Open heart surgery involves any kind of surgery where the wall of the chest has to be opened and the heart is operated. The term "open" refers to the chest and not the heart but still dependent on the type of surgery, the heart may also be opened. This type of surgery is usually used to bypass blocked arteries of the heart, as well as to repair or replace valves of the heart and fix atrial fibrillation.

In a minimally invasive heart surgery, instead of making a large incision down the center of the chest to open the rib cage, small incisions in the side of the chest between the ribs are made. This new heart surgery is used to repair or replace heart valves and to insert pacemakers.

Minimally invasive heart surgery as compared to open heart surgery include smaller incisions and scars, less pain, lower risk of infection, shorter stay in the hospital as well as faster recovery.

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