Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

• Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) pt1:

  • Where an obstruction is isolated and discrete it is usual for a PPCI or PCI to be performed
  • But in the case of multivessel and multifocal obstructive lesions a CABG may be used
  • In by-pass surgery healthy vessels from outside of the coronary circulation will be used to literally bypass obstructed points in coronary arteries
  • Surgical options are several and depend on how many by-pass
  • procedures are to be performed, generally the more vessels that need by-passing at one point in time the more likely the patient is to have a sternotomy
• Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) pt2:

  • Given the objective of the surgery, the surgeon can choose from the highly invasive sternotomy to the minimally invasive TCAB procedure
  • A surgeon may choose to operate on cardiopulmonary by-pass or perform an off-pump procedure, for example using an Octopus
  • And there are a number of different vessels which could be harvested to by-pass the atherosclerotic lesion(s)