If your coronary arteries (arteries that supply blood to the heart) become blocked or lined with plaque causing less-than-normal blood flow through them, the heart muscle can’t get the right amount of oxygen-rich blood to work properly. Your heart cannot pump normally, and this can lead to heart failure.
Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery involves the use of a blood vessel graft to bypass one or more blocked coronary arteries. The bypass restores normal blood flow to the heart muscle. The graft goes around the clogged artery/arteries and forms new pathways for oxygen-rich blood to flow to the heart muscle. The blood vessel grafts usually come from your own arteries and veins in the chest, leg or arm.
Types Of Heart Failure Surgeries
Surgical Ventricular Restoration (SVR)
SVR is a surgical procedure to treat congestive heart failure caused by myocardial infarction or heart attack. Following a heart attack, scar or an aneurysm may develop resulting in an enlarged rounded heart. This may lead to congestive heart failure which is CHF.
The goal of SVR is to restore the heart to more normal size and shape causing improved function. The SVR procedure is performed in conjunction with coronary artery grafting to ensure optimal blood supply to the heart. Some patients also have valve repair.
Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD)
A left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is a battery-operated, mechanical pump-like device that’s surgically implanted. It helps in maintaining the pumping of a heart that can’t effectively work on its own.
An LVAD can help a weak heart and buy time for the patient, or eliminate the need for a heart transplant altogether. Most recently, LVADs are being used the longer term in end-stage heart failure patients when heart transplantation isn’t an option. LVADs are now portable and are often used for weeks to months. Patients with LVADs can be discharged from the hospital and can maintain an acceptable quality of life while waiting for a donor heart to become available.
Heart Transplant
In case a patient is suffering from progressive heart failure, that cannot be improved with the help of medication or dietary and lifestyle changes. In such cases, a heart transplant treatment may be the only effective treatment option.
The surgeon replaces the damaged heart with the healthy one from a donor who has been declared brain dead. It can take several months to find a donor heart that closely matches the tissues of the person receiving the transplant. But the matching process increases the likelihood that the recipient body will accept the heart.