Surgeons Just Performed the First Open Heart Surgery With...

What’s Happening

Alright so The unconventional method could be the future of heart surgeries.

FOR THE FIRST time, doctors have successfully completed a coronary artery bypass without cutting the patient open. They just documented the results of the landmark surgery in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions . (let that sink in)

The surgery was done on a 67-year-old man whose aortic valve was already replaced with a prosthetic.

The Details

But, he developed a buildup of calcium and the prosthetic needed replacing. But there were several reasons he couldn’t get a valve replacement.

He had a history of kidney failure, stroke , and heart failure , making him too high risk for open heart surgery. Plus, the patient’s implant was in a place (super close to the opening of his left coronary artery) where undergoing a standard valve replacement would risk blocking blood flow.

Why This Matters

He also was an unsuitable candidate for other minimally invasive heart procedures. To work around these issues, doctors had a creative solution: Instead of cracking open the man’s chest, they would go an artery in his leg. “Our patient had an extensive history of prior interventions, vascular disease, and other confounders, which meant that open-heart surgery was completely off the table.

Medical professionals are taking note of this development.

Key Takeaways

• “We thought, ‘why don’t we just move the ostium of the coronary artery out of the danger zone’.
• ” The unconventional technique is known as VECTOR (ventriculo-coronary transcatheter outward navigation and re-entry).
• It involves creating a new route for blood flow through blood vessels in the leg to reach the heart.

The Bottom Line

Passing a wire from the the aorta and into the at-risk coronary artery allows for doctors to load more sophisticated tools to the target area. VECTOR has been tested in animals, but never in humans.

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