Bypass surgery 'could be transformed'

Device could make bypass surgery easier

A new surgical device could help to revolutionise coronary artery bypass surgery.

The device, which has been used by a Swiss medical team, could greatly reduce the time the operation takes - and the skill level required by the surgeon.

Coronary artery bypass surgery is done to re-route blood around clogged arteries and improve the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart.

One method, called coronary anastomosis, is to remove a piece from a long vein in the leg and use it to connect up the aorta - the large artery leaving the heart - to the coronary artery below the blocked area.

This technology might have a tremendous impact

Dr Friedrich Eckstein, University Hospital, Bern

The Swiss team, from University Hospital, Bern, used the device to carry out coronary anastomosis on a 61 year-old patient with acute angina (chest pains).

The new approach involves implantation of a stainless-steel mechanical coronary connector, without the need for highly skilled and time-consuming stitching of the graft to the blood vessels.

The procedure was done in November, 2000, and the patient was discharged from hospital nine days after surgery.

US design

The coronary connector device was developed by the St Jude Medical Anastomotic Technology Group, Minneapolis, USA.

It had been successfully tested on animals where coronary anastomosis was done in less than three minutes with little training required.

Dr Friedrich Eckstein, a member of the Swiss team, said: "This technology might have a tremendous impact on coronary-artery bypass surgery, especially now less-invasive approaches are gaining favour".

There are over 28,000 coronary artery bypass grafts carried out each year, and this figure has doubled in the last 10 years.

A spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation said: "Any procedure that will increase the number of operations carried out will be beneficial to patients and surgeons.

"However, the most important issue is the benefit this device may offer to patients in the short and long term.

"This will demand further study to evaluate the risks and advantages of this device over other well-tested procedures."

Professor Gianni Angelini, an expert in cardiac surgery from the University of Bristol, said the technique had still to undergo extensive tests.

However, he said: "It could be another step towards doing an operation on a beating heart endoscopically without the need to split open the chest."

The research is published on the website of The Lancet medical journal.