A new surgical device that has been used by a Swiss medical team could greatly reduce the time and skill required for coronary-artery bypass surgery, conclude authors of a fast-track research letter in the current issue of The Lancet.The new approach involves implantation of a stainless-steel mechanical coronary connector -- without the need for highly skilled and time-consuming suturing (stitching) of the graft to the blood vessels. The procedure was done in November, 2000, and the patient was discharged from the hospital 9 days after surgery.
Friedrich Eckstein, Thierry Carrel and colleagues from University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland, used the device in a 61 year-old patient with acute angina to assist the process of coronary anastomosis -- the joining of a coronary artery and vein graft to bypass blocked blood vessels.
The coronary connector device was developed by the St. Jude Medical Anastomotic Technology Group, Minneapolis, Minn., having been successfully tested on animals in which coronary anastomosis was done in less than three minutes with little training required.
Friedrich Eckstein comments: "This technology might have a tremendous impact on coronary-artery bypass surgery, especially now (that) less-invasive approaches are gaining favor."
[Contact: Dr. Friedrich Eckstein, Professor Thierry Carrel]
19-Mar-2001
