ISSN: 1755-5310 (Electronic)1755-5302 (Print)

Interventional Cardiology

Cardiac Surgery Innovations

Cardiac surgery, also called heart surgery, involves surgical operations performed on the heart under to correct life-threatening conditions. The surgery can be either open-heart surgery or minimally invasive surgery depending on the condition to be corrected.Cardiac surgery involves substantial risk and is only done when the benefits outweigh the risk. Risks are highest for infants under one year of age and adults over age 60. Risk increases with age and when the individual has other health problems such as diabetes, chronic kidney failure , chronic lung disease, pulmonary edema , congestive heart failure , electrolyte imbalances, alcoholism, and prior history of heart attack or stroke . Although few conditions absolutely rule out a cardiac procedure, the physician must judge the risks and benefits on an individual basis. To understand how cardiac surgery works, it is helpful to know something about the anatomy of the heart. The heart is a muscle containing four compartments or chambers that separate oxygen-poor blood from oxygen-rich blood. The atria are the top chambers. They receive blood from the body. The ventricles are the bottom chambers. They pump blood out to the body. Oxygen-poor blood enters the right atrium, then moves through a valve to the right ventricle. It is then pumped out of the right ventricle to the lungs where it picks up oxygen.     

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