Bypass surgery has many names, you may hear it referred to simply as bypass surgery, open heart surgery or CABG (pronounced cabbage).

It is an operation where the surgeon takes veins or arteries from another part of your body, usually the saphenous vein in the legs or the internal mammary artery in the chest and uses it to "bypass" a blockage in a coronary artery that sits on the outside of the heart.

A healthy heart with normal blood flow through the arteries.

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If a blockage occurs in one or more of these arteries on the outside of the heart then bypass surgery is required.

The surgery lasts between 4 to 6 hours. Your sternum (breatbone) is cut to allow access to the heart. You will be placed on a ventelator which is machine that will breath for you. Your blood will be redirected to a pump that circulates the blood through your body while the operation takes place. This machine is run by a perfussionist.

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An example of a double bypass. The amount of bypasses, ie. double, or quadruple does not effect the recovery time.

Who has Bypass Surgery? - Preparing for the Surgery

Index

1) ViaHealth Rochester General Hospital website
(http://www.viahealth.org/rgh/departments/cardiac/arteries.htm)

2) ViaHealth Rochester General Hospital website (http://www.viahealth.org/rgh/departments/cardiac/cardiacsurgeries.htm)

Kim Lowry, April 1 2002