Open Heart Surgery Patient Information

Dr. Donald L. Bricker MDand Cheryl B. Hunt

2010

What Is Open Heart Surgery?

Originally, all open heart surgeries required a “heart-lung” machine -

* Today, even minimally invasive heart is still considered open heart surgery, even when a heart-lung machine is not used.

What Types of Open Heart Surgeries Are There?

• Almost as many as the parts

of the heart that they repair.

• Your doctor will give you detailed information on your surgery.

• You can also get more information from resources listed at the end of these slides.

Is Open Heart Surgery Safe?

Survival rates depend on:• How healthy the patient is.• What type of surgery is done.

Talk to your doctor about the risks for your surgery.

More Heart Surgeries Gives Doctors More Experience

Even More Heart Transplants Are Being Done

Open Heart Surgery Is Now Safe Enough For Seniors

1989 200175

80

85

90

95

100

Survival Rate for Patients over 75 years of age

Survival Rate for Patients over 75 years of age

Other Resources:

• The American Heart Associationhttp://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/

• MedLine Plus: A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health (NIH)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

• The National Heart Lung and Blood Institutehttp://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/hs/hs_risk.html