Cardiothoracic Surgeon In Tennessee Performs One of World’s First Closed-Chest Bypass Surgeries
http://tristarhealth.com/September 05, 2007
TriStar Health System’s Centennial Medical Center Once Again Home To Groundbreaking Cardiac Procedures
Nationally-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Louis A. Brunsting, M.D., performed a ground-breaking minimally-invasive, closed-chest, multiple vessel bypass procedure at Centennial Medical Center in Nashville last week. Dr. Louis A. Brunsting and his team used the C-Port® Flex A Anastomosis System and Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci robot to complete a multivessel minimally-invasive bypass procedure on a 67-year old male patient who had undergone hip replacement surgery one week earlier. The procedure was performed through four one-inch port access incisions in the left chest, which allowed the patient to resume physical therapy for his hip the following day.
“Centennial Medical Center continues to be on the cutting edge of cardiothoracic surgery technology, adding the most technically-sophisticated, safe and effective devices like the C-Port Flex A system to improve patient outcomes and enable less invasive cardiac surgery,” said Dr. Brunsting. “Just as the advent of endoscopic stapling and suturing devices made laparoscopic surgery commonplace for abdominal surgeries, the Flex A system overcomes the most significant limitation in robot-assisted bypass procedures by replacing hand-sewn sutures with automated, consistent anastomoses.”
During closed-chest bypass procedures, Dr. Brunsting guides the da Vinci® Surgical System to perform precise movements through fingertip-size incisions in the chest area, similar to the procedures for minimally invasive abdominal surgery. To ensure the highest level of safety for the patient, the cardiothoracic surgeon creates an additional safety port insertion for extreme instances where the surgeon needs direct and sudden access to the heart.
The Flex A system eliminates a key bottleneck to the broad adoption of minimally-invasive bypass procedures as it replaces hand-sewn sutures with an automated connection of the vessel graft to the coronary artery, and can be performed consistently, quickly and reliably. This connection, called an anastomosis, is often considered the most critical step during bypass surgery. With the C-Port Flex A system’s flexible shaft, surgeons can position the device to create a secure connection even in the most difficult to reach areas of the heart. The connection is complete typically in less than two minutes and requires no additional hand-sewn sutures for the anastomosis. This device received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2007.
Conventional “open heart” coronary artery graft bypass (CABG) surgeries are performed by cutting the sternum The current method of performing an anastomosis takes approximately ten to 15 minutes per anastomosis and uses technically demanding, tedious and time-consuming hand-sewn sutures to connect a blood vessel to the aorta and to small diameter coronary vessels. Patients who receive open heart CABG procedures stay in the hospital an average of 5-9 days, and it can take up to two months for the patient to return to normal activity. Patients undergoing closed-chest CABG procedures may be discharged in 24 to 48 hours following surgery, and often return to normal activity levels within one to two weeks.
About Centennial Medical Center
Centennial Medical Center, part of TriStar Health System, is a 615-bed tertiary facility that has been accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Centennial Medical Center has been recognized as one of the country’s 100 Top Hospitals in cardiovascular medicine, stroke service, orthopedics, and breast cancer management.
