Most common heart-related
conditions
- provided by America's leading
cardiologists
Surgery
Though screening and prevention can often help
you catch heart disease before you need surgery,
sometimes a surgical procedure is necessary. Many
heart surgeries are routine, but all of them carry
risks. Learn the different types of surgeries that
can help your heart health, and what steps you can
take following surgery to avoid risks.
What is Bypass Surgery?
Coronary bypass is a form of heart surgery
that uses new arteries to "bypass" and
replace clogged heart arteries. Tune in to learn
more about this important type of heart surgery.
Participants:
Lawrence I. Bonchek MD
Webcast Transcript:
ANNOUNCER: A coronary bypass is a type of heart
surgery that re-routes blood vessels around heart
arteries that have become clogged with cholesterol
build-up.
LAWRENCE I. BONCHEK, MD: Bypass surgery is done
in order to route blood around obstructions in the
coronary arteries, which are the arteries that supply
blood to the heart. They're actually very small
arteries, so it doesn't take a lot of cholesterol
buildup in the wall of the artery to block an artery
that size.
Surgeons will take a healthy blood vessel like
an artery from the chest wall or a vein from the
leg, and then connect the blood vessel above and
below the blockage to bypass it.
LAWRENCE I. BONCHEK, MD: There are two major ways
that bypass surgery is done nowadays, and people
will hear the terms off-pump and on-pump bypass
surgery. Traditionally, bypass surgery has always
been done with a heart-lung machine so that the
heart could be stopped and the lungs are not being
inflated, and the heart-lung machine is doing those
functions while the heart is absolutely stationary
to allow very precise, meticulous sewing while the
bypasses are being attached.
But in recent years, with advances in technology,
there have been pieces of equipment developed that
allow you to stabilize a small area of the heart
that you're working on, and to do the bypass operation
without the heart-lung machine. And that's known
as off-pump bypass surgery.
ANNOUNCER: Lifestyle modifications are important
after surgery so that the new blood vessels don't
become blocked as well.
LAWRENCE I. BONCHEK, MD: The most common lifestyle
modifications are correcting all the bad things
that people have been doing beforehand, such as
not smoking. They should lose weight. They should
watch the salt in their diet. They should eat a
healthier diet.
ANNOUNCER: Bypass surgery is still a major procedure,
but most people can be fully recovered and active
in as little as two months.
LAWRENCE I. BONCHEK, MD: My advice to anyone who
has had bypass surgery is to enjoy life, because
that's the purpose of having the surgery so that
they can get back to full and normal activity.
The information
published on this page has been provided by the
Heart Authority
in collaboration with Cardiosource – American College of Cardiology
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