| Heart Bypass Surgery |
A New York Times story in November did a nice job of explaining the difference between cardiac surgery done while the patient is attached to a heart-lung machine, and that done "off pump" while the patient's heart continues to beat. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine prompted the story.
It gave me a reason to visit the heart surgeons at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, where Dr. Joel Rosenberg provided footage (above) from the operating room--using a camera mounted on top of his heads, to keep his hands free.
What's interesting about the study, as I wrote in The (Syracuse) Post-Standard, is that surgeons for decades performed open heart surgery with the help of a heart-lung machine, which allows the patient’s heart to lay still while they sew healthy blood vessels around blocked ones. By around 2001, many surgeons were doing the surgery “off-pump,” believing that would reduce the risk of stroke, memory problems or personality changes that occurred with some patients who had the surgery on pump. Believing — but without any evidence. Until the New England Journal study came out.
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