Heart surgery.

In recent decades, medical science has gone ahead in leaps and bounds. Various methods of treatment, both conservative and operational, are being improved. Modernized methods of conservative treatment can reduce the number of necessary operational intrusions in the human body. As for heart surgery, surgical intervention has always been considered the most difficult and time consuming. Today, during the development and active use of minimally invasive endoscopic methods, this statement is not always fair.

At present, heart surgery has become a very useful tactic for treating various pathologies of the cardiovascular system. Basically, surgical intervention is appointed if the problem is not conservative, and if there is a risk to the patient's health and life.

Modern cardiac surgery is a whole division of medicine, specializing in the treatment of heart diseases by operative methods. Most often, heart surgery is performed in the presence of heart disease, as well as coronary heart disease, which is also rapidly progressing.

Cardiosurgery has undergone a number of significant changes in recent years. Thus, modern scientific knowledge in the field of medicine allows conducting operations on a working heart without the use of apparatus of artificial circulation. In addition, modern minimally invasive methods have become widespread, among which the leading role is played by endoscopic cardiac surgery. When carrying out an endoscopic operation, operative access is minimal, all manipulations on the organ are performed using a special apparatus - an endoscope. The surgeon performs the operation by observing it on the monitor screen.

As mentioned above, heart surgery is indicated if normalization of the patient's condition without surgical intervention is not possible, as well as in case of active disease progression, which creates a risk for the patient's life.

Among the most frequent heart operations is the treatment of coronary heart disease. Since one of the leading causes of coronary heart disease is atherosclerosis of the coronary vessels, aortocoronary shunting is performed to normalize the vascular patency.

How does heart surgery work? Aortocoronary bypass surgery is an operation to replace impassable sclerosed vessels with normal vessels of the patient himself, taken primarily from the limb region. Segments of veins and arteries are sutured to the coronary vessels, thus creating a bypass for the blood flow( collateral).As a result of this operation, ischemia of the myocardium is eliminated and normal blood flow in the heart muscle is restored.

In addition to bypass surgery, balloon angioplasty is currently being actively used. The technique of this method consists in inserting a tube with a balloon at the end into a sclerized vessel that, when filled with air under pressure, crushes a plaque in the lumen of the artery. Then a stent( a special spring resting against the walls) is installed in the artery, which does not allow the artery to subside and narrow its lumen.

As for heart defects, most of them do not require surgical intervention. However, there is a certain group of congenital heart defects that are incompatible with life. In such cases, immediate heart surgery is necessary.

Sometimes, in severe cases, they resort to a heart transplant. Statistics indicate that the life expectancy of patients after heart transplantation is on average about five years.

Thus, heart surgery is a fairly common method of treating pathologies of the cardiovascular system.