Cardiovascular surgeons at the University Clinical Center of Serbia have performed the world’s first five-bypass surgery on a patient using a minimally invasive technique.
Led by Dr. Danko Grujić, the team operated on a 60-year-old patient on Monday, performing a quintuple bypass using exclusively arterial grafts, all through a minimally invasive approach on a beating heart.
This procedure was carried out through a small, 5-centimeter incision between the ribs, without cutting any bone structures, while one of the patient’s lungs was isolated.
Dr. Grujić stated that the surgery went exceptionally well, and the patient is scheduled for discharge today, just four days post-operation.
“He will be able to resume his normal activities within two weeks,” said Dr. Grujić.
The team that performed this demanding surgery, in addition to Dr. Grujić, included his assistant Dr. Vojkan Aleksić, anesthesiologist Dr. Tatjana Kokotović, who maintained the patient’s hemodynamic and respiratory stability throughout the entire procedure, instrument technician Slađana Pantić, anesthesiologist Anđela Đorđević, and perfusionist Predrag Radovanović.
“After two and a half years of experience with this treatment method for our most challenging patients, we have achieved a level of teamwork that allowed us to perform a five-bypass surgery on this patient,” said Dr. Grujić. “We have performed dozens of surgeries with three or four bypasses, but for this patient, who had severe damage to five blood vessels supplying the heart, we created an operation that colleagues worldwide have not yet published.”
Dr. Grujić and his team are leaders in this region in applying the minimally invasive bypass grafting method, which is performed under general anesthesia. The incision is made on the left side of the chest, below the left breast, measuring five centimeters. The heart is accessed using a special retractor and long instruments designed for this type of surgery.
“Through this small surgical ‘window,’ we prepare the grafts for the bypass and perform the entire operation through the same incision,” explained Dr. Grujić. “We performed all surgeries on a beating heart without using a heart-lung machine.”
The UKCS team has long been a leader in applying minimally invasive bypass methods in cardiac surgery, as prior to this first five-bypass surgery, they had performed triple and quadruple bypasses on approximately thirty patients. This is a series that only a few world centers can boast.
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Source: Novosti
Photo: Pixabay