BYPASS surgery without opening the
front of the chest or using a heart-lung
machine was conducted at the Escorts
Heart Institute and Research Centre in
Delhi. Naresh Trehan, the Centre's executive director, performed the opera tions on two patients - the f irst ever in
India. The technique is known as
minithoracotomy and bypasses the
main coronary artery, the left anterior
descending artery. The new process
entails a two-inch opening made on the
left lateral chest. The internal mammary artery, fastened behind the breast
bone, has been used on one of the
patients having a complete blockage of
the left descending artery. It was
utilised to bypass the the blockage
by linking it to the left anterior
descending artery beyond the
affected portion to make the blood
flow to the heart. The operation
was carried out on a beating heart.
The new method would reduce the
cost of operation from Rs 1.5 lakh
to Rs 50,000. It would also lessen
the patient's stay at the hospital to
three-fou 'I, not the usual 10 days,
and considerably slice the patients'
physical and psychological stress.
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