Different Types of Heart Surgeries

A surgery of the heart involves treatment of a blocked artery by replacing it with a vein from any other part of the body, usually from the leg. This is done by subjecting the patient to a heart lung machine, leaving the resting heart to be operated upon by the surgeon. The patient is able to lead a near normal life there after. Through the years, various advancements in this field have occurred and some of them are being discussed below:

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
This is performed on a patient with a major block in one or more arteries due to plaque formation rendering the passage of blood difficult. Here, the surgeon utilizes an artery or vein from the leg and joins it to the affected artery. The blocked artery is thus bypassed and through this, a surgeon can bypass up to 4 blocks.

Tran myocardial Laser Revascularization (TLR)
In this instance, when other options do not produce the desired result, angina is treated using laser which creates passages in the heart. These passages permit the blood to flow freely within the heart.

Valve Repair /Replacement
The valves in the heart perform the duty of allowing unidirectional flow of blood through flaps also called as “Leaflets”. These function as gate keepers and permit the blood to only flow in one direction from the arteries to the heart. They then close on their own preventing the reverse flow of blood from the heart back to the arteries. One type of surgery involves replacing the defective valve through human or any other material so that the function resumes as before and the blood is able to flow freely.

Aneurysm Repair
This term means an unusual swelling of the heart muscle or some portion of the artery walls. This anomaly typically happens in the left chamber of the heart. This bulging can burst over a period of time resulting in severe bleeding within the body and can also lead to a massive attack. Surgeons tackle this problem by replacing those portions of the artery with the swelling with a graft of a healthy artery. The patient can lead a normal life and is in no danger in the future.

Heart Transplant
This involves the full replacement of the feeble heart with a healthy one. A feeble heart is unable to perform the pumping action and cannot distribute blood to the different parts of the body. This surgery is resorted to when there is no other option. Due to scarcity of donor hearts, such operations are performed after a lot of thought and only as a last resort. The surgeon will evaluate all other methods to see how the feeble heart can be made to function and will opt for this only for really desperate patients.

Overall, your surgeon will take the call on what procedure to adopt out of the above, when faced with complications. The positive aspect is that there are choices and they generally are successful in the hands of specialist surgeons.