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Strong Heart and Vascular Center

Division of Cardiac Surgery

Open-Heart Surgery

Although every effort is made to perform minimally-invasive procedures, some procedures require open-heart surgery. The surgical team of the Strong Heart and Vascular Center are trained to make open-heart surgery as safe and effective as possible.

During open-heart surgery, the beating of the heart is temporarily stopped and life is maintained through a cardiopulmonary bypass (also called CPB or the heart-lung machine). The heart may be stopped either through decrease in temperature or through the injection of a preservative. The heart-lung machine then keeps the blood pumping through the body, adding the necessary oxygen and nutrients. There are risks associated with the use of the heart-lung machine, such as organ damage and blood clots, so every effort is made to keep each patient's time on this machine to a minimum.

Types of Open Heart Surgery

At one time, open heart surgery was reserved for operations to the heart only. Now, since the development of bypass surgery, open-heart surgery also includes operations on the coronary arteries. These arteries lie on the surface of the heart.

The most common types of open-heart surgery we perform are:

  • Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Treatment for coronary artery disease and atherosclerosis. Here, we take a portion of a healthy blood vessel from somewhere else in the body and use it to create a new route around the blocked part of a blood vessel and into the heart. This process is also called revascularization, because it brings blood back to the heart.

  • Heart valve procedures. Correct defective heart valves from stenosis (narrowing/blockage) or regurgitation (leaking). This type of surgery repairs defective heart valves. If we can’t repair the valve, we replace it with a donor, either a biological (human or animal) or mechanical (man-made) valve.

  • Heart transplant. Replaces a severely damaged heart with a healthy heart from a human donor. Someday we will transplant man-made hearts and eliminate the long waiting lists for donor hearts.

  • Thoracic aortic aorta procedures. Surgical treatment for all types of thoracic aortic aorta conditions, including asscending aortic pathology in Marphan's Disease, dissection of the aorta and thoracic and arch aneurysms using circulatory arrest techniques.

Our surgeons who perform open heart surgery

Contact Us

For more information, or to schedule a consultation, please contact us at 585-275-5384.