Beating Heart Surgery Information

What is Beating Heart Surgery?

Beating heart surgery most commonly refers to coronary artery bypass graft surgery performed on the beating heart. Standard coronary artery bypass surgery is performed by "arresting" the heart and supporting the vital organs of the body by pumping oxygenated blood from the heart-lung machine into the patient. With an ever aging population, an old technique described first by the Russian surgeon Kolessov was "reinvented" and popularized in the United States in the 1990's. The technique avoids the use of the heart-lung machine and its known deleterious effects, namely stroke and other end-organ dysfunction. These deleterious effects are more likely in the elderly, hence the impetus to use the beating heart technique in high risk patients. More recently, several large studies from respected institutions around the world have demonstrated that beating heart coronary artery bypass surgery is equally efficacious in the low-risk patient, that is patients who have disease limited only to the heart.

In beating heart surgery, the heart is allowed to beat and bypass grafts are constructed without support of the heart-lung machine. A very large body of literature exists about the benefits of beating heart coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The aim of this section is to keep both patients and practicing surgeons updated on the latest techniques and outcome studies in beating heart coronary artery bypass surgery, also known as "off-pump" coronary artery bypass surgery.

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Interesting Topics...

October 2	Beating Heart Surgery - Risk Stratified Morbidity and Mortality of Off Pump Coronary Artery Surgery In the UK by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD, Harry W. Donias, MD regarding Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass (OPCAB) surgery reduces risk-stratified morbidity and mortality: a United Kingdom Multi-Center Comparative Analysis of Early Clinical Outcome in Circulation 108(10 Suppl 1):II1-8
October 2	Stroke and Cognitive Dysfunction After Beating Heart and Off Pump Coronary Artery Surgery by Marat Reyzelman regarding Stroke And Cognitive Dysfunction after Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery: Beating Heart versus Cardiopulmonary Bypass in Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 75(2):472-8
October 3	Nitinol Clips During Off Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD regarding Use of nitinol-U clips and flow characteristics of LIMA-LAD anastomoses in Interactive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery 2:237-240
October 5	Is Postoperative Bleeding Less Following Beating Heart Coronary Artery Surgery (Off Pump) ? by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD regarding A comparison of bleeding and transfusion in patients who undergo coronary artery bypass grafting via sternotomy with and without cardiopulmonary bypass in J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth 17(4):447-51
October 6	Platelet Function After Off-Pump (Beating Heart) Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD regarding Platelet Function after Off Pump Coronary Surgery in Heart Surgery Forum volume 6, issue 5
October 7	Off Pump (Beating Heart) Coronary Artery Surgery - Avoiding Surgical Pitfalls by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD regarding Beating Heart (Off Pump) Coronary Artery Surgery - Exposure and Stabilization in hsforum.com
October 10	Is The Jury Out? Is Off Pump (Beating Heart )Coronary Surgery Better for Acute Myocardial Infarction? by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD, Giuseppe D'Ancona, MD regarding Myocardial revascularization on the beating heart after recent onset of acute myocardial infarction in Heart Surgery Forum 4(1):74-9
October 8	Stroke, Off Pump Coronary Artery Surgery and Beating Heart Surgery by Hratch L Karamanoukian, MD regarding Determinants of stroke after coronary artery bypass grafting in Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 24(4):552-6

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