Heart Surgery: Faster Recovery
by Lauren Whisenhunt
CBS 42 News
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If you’ve had heart surgery before, you know just how difficult it can be for a delicate heart to recovery after surgery. When surgeons operate, their goal is to repair the heart in surgery. However, during surgery, the heart can get a little bruised and it takes a while for the bruised heart to heal.
Now, to help hearts heal after surgery, cardiac surgeons temporarily implant a new device that helps the heart pump blood, giving it a short-term rest. It basically can perform the function of 2/3 of the heart, and so we let the heart kind of just hang out and repair itself.
The tiny pump fits inside a catheter that is inserted through an artery in the groin leading to the heart. The device then helps pump blood in the left ventricle, which is the heart's main pumping chamber. It's designed to support the heart for a week or less after surgery, allowing the heart to recover faster.
Doctors think they can now pull more patients through open heart surgery than ever before, because they have this powerful little tool to assist the heart in healing.
Some patients only need the pump for just two days after surgery. It helps the heart heal quicker and get the patient back on their feet.
It can really shorten a patient’s recovery time and get them up and moving sooner than before. Now that’s a faster recovery for the patient and the heart.
The heart pump device can pump up to five liters of blood per minute, about three-quarters of a normal heart's output of seven liters per minute. After the device has done its job, it's removed from the patient.
A PENCIL-SIZED HEART PUMP: The Impella 5.0 weighs just eight grams, but can pump about 75 percent as much blood as a healthy heart. It is intended to allow the heart to rest for a short time following cardiac surgery. The pump assists the left ventricle, pumping up to 5 liters of blood per minute. Doctors insert the pump by threading it from through blood vessels from an incision in the leg to the heart.
THE AMAZING HEART: The heart pumps 5.6 liters of blood through the entire body in roughly 20 seconds; each day your blood travels some 12,000 miles, and your heart beats about 100,000 times. This delivers oxygen and other essential nutrients to the body's cells and organs.
WHAT CAUSES HEART ATTACKS: Heart attack is the leading cause of death in North and South America and in
Europe . It is usually the result of prolonged hardening and narrowing of the arteries that direct blood into the heart. When blood vessels are healthy, oxygen-rich blood flows easily to all the muscles and organs of the body; but if they become clogged by the buildup of fatty deposits on vessel walls, blood can be cut off, killing heart muscle cells. This is called coronary heart disease, and it can lead to heart attacks or strokes. Symptoms of a heart attack include a squeezing discomfort in the center of the chest, pain or tingling in the left arm, shortness of breath, and sometimes a cold sweat, nausea or dizziness.
On The Web:
http://www.abiomed.com/products/impella.cfm
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