Important Developments in Cardiothoracic Surgery

Cardiothoracic surgery has come a long, long way in the past few years. Cardiac surgery, which is performed on the heart or its great vessels to treat conditions of ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease due to endocarditis or other causes, or to correct congenital heart problems, has existed since the late nineteenth century. The first heart surgery performed successfully with no complications was done in 1896, to repair a stab wound to the heart. It was soon realized that repairing intracardiac problems required an environment in which blood flow and heart action were minimal, which entailed stopping the heart and draining the blood. The first successful congenital heart defect surgery utilizing hypothermia was performed in 1952; a year later, the first successful cardiac surgery with local anesthesia was performed.

Open heart surgery, in which the patient's chest is opened and the heart is operated on, was performed in 1953. In this type of procedure the heart itself may or may not be opened (the term "open" refers to the chest, not the heart). It was soon realized that hypothermia was unsuitable since it deprives the body, and especially the brain, of needed blood for too long a period. In the mid 1950's Gibbon-type pumps were developed to oxygenate the blood and allow for longer procedures with less risk to the patient. In the 1990's cardiac surgeons began performing off pump bypass surgeries, which are triple bypass Illinois operations in which the heart continues beating during the surgery. This new technique made for lessened post-operative problems and gave overall results which were more satisfactory than the older methods.

The most important new development in heart surgery is known as robotic heart surgery, in which a machine performs the surgical procedure under the control of a human surgeon. The chief advantage of this method is the size of the incision needed. Where in older forms of surgery the incision had to be large enough to accommodate the surgeon's hands, this new minimally-invasive surgery requires only 3 small incisions for the robot's smaller "hands" to enter. These smaller incisions reduce the trauma to the patient's body, which in turn means lessened pain and scarring. Also the smaller incisions produce faster healing, with reduced infection risk. This adds up to a shorter hospital stay and faster return to normal, everyday activities. Instead of taking months for the patient to recover, many patients can resume enjoying athletics in a few weeks. The new minimally-invasive techniques have lowered mortality rates drastically. As an example, congenital heart defect repairs now average about 5% mortality.

Cardiothoracic surgery has come a long way in the past century; particularly in the past decade with the introduction of minimally invasive robotic heart surgery techniques. Now a triple bypass Illinois can be performed with minimum risk to the patient, rapid recovery, and with a speedy return to normal, everyday living.

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