Beating Heart Surgery

Coronary Bypass "Beating-Heart" Surgery

Coronary artery disease takes nearly 500,000 American lives each year. Coronary arteries can become blocked by the build-up of cholesterol fats known simply as plaque. Until the mid-1990s, most patients who needed coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) had to be placed on heart-lung machines during surgery. This allowed surgeons to perform surgery on a still heart while the patient relied on the heart-lung machine for vital respiratory and circulatory functions.

Surgeons and medical device companies then collaborated to develop and perfect a new surgical technique that does not require a heart-lung machine. This became known as the off-pump, or beating-heart, technique. Paul E. Seifert, MD, FACS, is one of the few cardiothoracic surgeons in the United States using the off-pump beating-heart technique on more than 90% of his coronary bypass patients (versus the national average of 22%).

The surgery restores blood flow by rerouting the blood around the blockage. The grafts are made from pieces of another artery in the patient’s body, which are then connected beyond the blockage. The procedure uses a state-of-the-art heart stabilizing device to immobilize the bypass graft section while allowing the rest of the heart to function normally, pumping blood throughout the body.

Beating-Heart Surgery Has Many Advantages

In addition to eliminating the need for patients to be placed on heart-lung machines during surgery, the beating-heart technique offers other patient benefits:

• Shortens hospital stays from seven to ten days down to four or five days.
• Speeds recovery, allowing most patients to return to normal activity in three to four weeks instead of six to eight weeks.
• Shortens actual surgery time by about an hour.
• Reduces the risk of heart arrhythmias, fluid retention, bleeding & death.
• Eliminates the damage to blood cells and blood clotting functions caused by heart-lung machines.
• Improves outcomes with far fewer complications such as stroke, pneumonia or kidney problems.

Dr. Seifert’s patients emerge from beating-heart bypass surgery reporting greater mental sharpness, too. They experience far less memory loss and inability to focus than typical bypass patients who often suffer from these neurologic symptoms after surgery. In addition, their angina symptoms are relieved or eliminated and, the greatest benefit of all, their lives are prolonged.

Dr. Seifert is committed to the latest advances in cardiovascular surgical care. He has performed over 4,000 cardiac surgeries, including heart transplants and he is one of only a handful of surgeons to use an operating microscope for enhanced arterial visualization and precise graft construction.

At West Suburban Cardiothoracic Surgery in Waukesha, Wisconsin, you’ll find surgical expertise you can count on. Dr. Seifert is a board-certified fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American College of Chest Physicians and is vastly experienced in all aspects of cardiovascular surgical care. He encourages and welcomes your patients with coronary artery disease.

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