Open Heart Surgery

General Information

There are various types of heart disease and a variety of symptoms associated with each of them. Therapeutic methods currently used in various diseases of the heart, include medication to help fight the disease or delay its development, and surgical treatment, implying various operations. 

Open heart surgery - an operation on the heart, which is a unique surgical procedure that allows the heart surgeon to deal with a number of heart disease, especially when other treatments are not suitable or does not help. In many cases, it is a life-saving operation that is performed when the situation is urgent.

What is open-heart surgery?

Open-heart surgery begins with the opening of the chest and expose the heart. This is a very complex operation, so it is executed very heart surgeons who specialize in this area. During the operation, activity of the heart is stopped, and the patient is connected to a heart-lung machine (the machine "heart - lung"). That this operation is different from other heart surgery, during which the heart continues to beat normally. Open heart surgery can serve several purposes. This may be a heart transplant, bypass surgery , surgery to remove congenital defects in the heart and blood vessels, or surgery for valve replacement .

How is the operation?

As already mentioned, during open-heart surgery heart activity ceases, which allows the most successfully and without any interruption to perform various surgical procedures. Termination of cardiac function is made possible by connecting the patient to a heart-lung machine "heart - lung", imitating the work of the heart and lungs. Apparatus "heart - lung" includes two connections, one of which is responsible for the collection of blood from a vein, while the second compound is directly connected to the aorta, is responsible for pumping blood into the body. This unit, which works throughout the operation, allows you to remove waste from the blood and re-saturate it with oxygen, pumping back into the patient's body.

When connecting the patient to the machine "heart - lung" heart activity ceases gradually until it becomes obvious that the machine "heart - lung" is working properly. The first stage device helps cool the blood, to reduce the metabolic rate and heart rate without damage to the heart muscle. In the next step of the heart completely ceases operation with a special solution. After stopping of the heart to perform the required surgical procedure - coronary artery bypass grafting, valve replacement or correction of existing defects. When the operation is a normal activity of the heart is reduced, and the work unit "heart - lung" is stopped gradually, until it becomes obvious that the heart is working properly.

Other solutions in the treatment of heart problems

With the advanced technology, and also to avoid complex invasive procedures for treating various heart diseases, which in the past been impossible to avoid open heart surgery, currently used, and other solutions. Cardiac surgery, performed through a small incision, allows to cope with some heart disease minimally invasive methods, while achieving a high level of results. Such operations are, for example, help to overcome problems with the heart valves through small holes, caused by the ribs and chest wall. Through these holes the camera is introduced, helping to perform various manipulations. The advantage of this minimally invasive procedure generally is no need to perform the incision of the chest 30 cm, considered one of the most painful and difficult stages of open-heart surgery. This advantage significantly reduces recovery time and significantly reduces the period of hospitalization compared to open heart surgery. In addition, this type of surgical scars are practically invisible, and the prospects for the emergence of post-operative complications is very small.

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