Minimal Invasive Heart Surgery << back

Minimally invasive heart surgery is getting popular in the last few years. A minimally invasive approach allows one or more combinations of the following:



» Access to the heart through small incisions splitting only small part of the breast bone or through the spaces in the rib cage without splitting breast bone (Minimal Access Surgery)

» Surgery on heart without stopping the heart,(beating heart surgery)

» Making use of technology like videothoracoscope or robots to do key hole surgery. Making use of technology like videothoracoscope or robots to do

Typically heart surgery requires exposure of the heart and its vessels through a skin of 10-12” and median sternotomy (dividing the breastbone-figure1) and this is considered by many, especially patients, as one of the most invasive and traumatic aspects of open-chest surgery. This results in prolonged stay in hospital (5-10 days in general) and requires 8-12 weeks before they can return to their normal activities.

Figure 1

Moreover artificial heart-lung machine is used routinely in all patients going for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG- surgery done to increase blood supply to heart when it’s blood vessels are blocked). This machine can cause damage to blood resulting in bleeding problems, brain strokes, more blood transfusions and infections.



Minimally invasive heart surgery overcomes some of these by the following techniques:

Beating Heart Bypass Surgery (figure-2)

Coronary arteries are 1.5 to 2.5mm in diameter. When heart is beating, it is difficult to do surgery on such small blood vessels. Traditionally, bypass surgery is done after heart is stopped. During this time, blood is circulated using an artificial heart-lung machine. Now with the advent of newer devices, it is possible to do coronary artery bypass surgery without stopping heart. What method is suitable will be decided by surgeon in the operating room. This results in less bleeding problems, less blood transfusions and likely to have less complications like kidney failure and strokes.