20 February 2009
Vineeta Pandey
New Delhi, India
Three incisions were made: Two to insert equipment that stabilised the heart; from the third, the surgeon manually performed the bypass, in Suman’s Singhal case.
“In conventional bypass, the sternum (chest or breastbone) is cut open, which takes at least eight weeks to heal. This is the first time in India multiple grafts have been put, especially at the back of the heart, through minimally invasive coronary surgery,” said Dr Naresh Trehan, of the Indraprastha Apollo hospital.
“It is the first of its kind. It will mainly benefit women,” Dr. Trehan added. “Two instruments stabilise the heart. The octopus stabiliser is inserted from the right and has a suction pump attached. The instrument sucks the heart and stabilises it. The other instrument, inserted from the left, helps stabilise the heart. An 8–cm incision is made underneath the breast, through which we put grafts taken from the internal mammary artery and radial artery. Accessing the backside of the heart is difficult through minimally invasive surgery. Even in robotic surgery, we cannot put grafts at the back of the heart. Here, the instrument that holds the heart can rotate it so that the backside is clearly visible to the surgeon,” Dr Trehan said.
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