First coronary artery bypass surgery without opening the chest

For the first time ever in the history of human medicine, doctors performed coronary artery bypass surgery (a procedure to open a new passage for blood to flow around a completely or partially blocked artery) without having to cut open the patient’s chest, similar to how some aortic valve replacement surgeries are currently performed.

Coronary artery bypass surgery reroutes blood flow around a blockage in the artery that carries it to the heart. In this new procedure, surgical instruments were inserted and passed through a blood vessel in the patient’s leg, according to a report published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions.

The researchers emphasized that the results suggest that in the future, there could be a widely available and less painful alternative to open-heart surgery for patients at risk of coronary artery blockage.

Thinking outside the box

The lead researcher, Dr. Christopher Bruce of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, said that achieving this result “required some thinking outside the box,” adding, “I think we have developed a very practical solution.”

The patient was not a candidate for traditional open-chest coronary artery bypass surgery due to heart failure and old artificial heart valves that were not functioning well.

Six months after the procedure, the patient showed no signs of coronary artery blockage, meaning the new method was successful.

More testing on more patients is necessary before the new technology can be used more widely, but its success in the first trial is a big step in that direction.