Advances in Heart Surgery Give More People the Chance for Longer, Better Lives
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. Every year, 1 in 4 deaths are caused by heart disease.
The good news is, heart surgery saves lives. Many people with coronary heart disease — blocked heart arteries — owe their lives to bypass surgery.
In bypass surgery, a surgeon uses a blood vessel from another part of the body to create a detour around a blocked artery, thus restoring blood flow to the heart.
Our heart surgeons (l to r) Drs Henry J. Tannous (chief), Jorge M. Balaguer, Thomas V. Bilfinger, and Allison J. McLarty.
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology calls bypass surgery, first used in the early 1960s, “one of the great success stories in medicine,” adding:
“Relief of angina [chest pain due to poor blood flow to heart] …, improvement in exercise tolerance, and the realization of survival benefit have attended the operation since the early stages of development.”
Our team of heart surgeons at Stony Brook Heart Institute has earned the most prestigious top rating for performing bypass surgery.
Beyond traditional bypass surgery, exciting advances in heart surgery made in recent years allow more people to benefit from it. These advances include:
- Minimally invasive surgery, which allows for the delivery of complex care through tiny incisions, and gets patients back to their normal lives more quickly than ever before.
- Percutaneous aortic valve replacement, which allows for replacing the heart’s aortic valve through the blood vessels, as opposed to open heart surgery.
- Ventricular assist devices, which are “artificial hearts” (pumps) implanted in patients with weakened hearts or heart failure.
Bypass surgery may be the best treatment option for most patients with more than one blocked heart artery, according to research published last year the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
The research findings demonstrated a significant mortality benefit with bypass surgery over stenting, and this benefit was consistent across virtually all major patient groups.
Our team of heart surgeons at Stony Brook Heart Institute has earned the most prestigious top rating for performing bypass surgery (read more).
“We strive to provide world-class cardiothoracic care to Long Island,” says Henry J. Tannous, MD, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Stony Brook Heart Institute.
“We are currently rolling out innovations as we expand our program in structural heart surgery, reintroduce robotic heart surgery, and grow our program in surgery for treating heart rhythm (arrhythmia) problems.”
Our heart surgeons see patients at our offices in Stony Brook and Patchogue.
Learn more about our heart surgery program. For consultations/appointments, please call 631-444-1820.