Bypass in the Working Heart

Bypass surgeries, another technique of minimally invasive heart surgery, are usually performed on a beating heart. By name, bypass surgery is performed while the heart is working, without stopping the heart. The choice of this is based on the experience of the surgeon. These bypass surgeries can sometimes go up to two vessels, sometimes one vessel, sometimes up to three vessels.

Working heart bypass surgery refers to bypass surgeries performed while the patient’s heart is working and the heart is not connected to the lung machine. In this way, the working functions of the heart are preserved and complications that may arise in the processes of connecting the heart to the heart-lung machine from stopping the heart and providing blood flow to other organs with the heart-lung machine are prevented. After the tests, analyzes and evaluations, if there is a suitability condition, the bypass surgery to be performed while the heart is working is decided by the specialist physician. The operation is performed by bridging the vein taken from another part of the body to the heart vein, while the heart continues to work. In the patient who is not connected to the heart-lung machine, the risks of some complications that may occur in other organs after surgery are also reduced.