Email this pageCARDIAC - About Beating-Heart CABG
Beating-heart CABG is a relatively new operation that allows a surgeon to repair the heart’s vessels without putting the patient on a heart-lung bypass machine, which is used to stop the heart and circulate the patient’s blood to the rest of the body by bypassing the heart.
Conventional CABG surgery performed with the aid of a heart-lung bypass machine has been available since the early 1960s. Beating-heart CABG, approved by the FDA in January of 1997, is appropriate for patients with a variety of heart conditions, including coronary artery disease, genetic heart problems, heart disease as a result of diet, lack of exercise or high cholesterol. Beating-heart CABG especially benefits high-risk patients such as women, the elderly and those with additional risk factors such as diabetes. Guthrie cardiothoracic surgeons have offered this new procedure since November 1999, when Guthrie surgeons felt that the advances in the procedure had improved enough to be safely applicable.
Says Guthrie Clinic Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery Dr. Felice Reitknecht, "I now perform almost 100% of my CABG procedures as beating-heart surgeries, and am also doing beating-heart CABG in conjunction with transmyocardial revascularization (TMR), a laser heart surgical procedure that creates new passages for blood to circulate in the heart, circumventing diseased vessels."
For information about making an appointment with a cardiac specialist at Guthrie, call toll-free 1-888-4GUTHRIE (1-888-448-8474).
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