Hybrid Heart Surgery
This issue of healthpoints discusses advances in heart surgery that have been made possible by new surgical technologies and techniques that are less invasive than traditional methods.
Hybrid heart surgery refers to procedures that use traditional surgical methods in conjunction with minimally invasive, catheter-based approaches.
Hybrid operations allow surgeons the flexibility to take advantage of the best that each method has to offer and to tailor operations to the needs of each patient with great flexibility.
In some cases, a hybrid approach can enable the surgeon to treat a condition with a single operation rather than a series of operations, or to treat conditions that would otherwise be inoperable.
In this issue, two articles profile the benefits of hybrid surgery in children and adults. Hybrid surgery is gaining use by surgeons treating newborns with serious heart defects such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In adults, hybrid techniques are already in use for a host of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures: replacement or repair of heart valves, correction of atrial fibrillation, opening of blockages in the coronary arteries, and as discussed in this issue of healthpoints, a groundbreaking hybrid procedure to rebuild the aortic arch in patients with aortic aneurysms.