Emory Heart & Vascular Center advances medicine

American Heart Month 2010

Learn about Emory Heart & Vascular Center advances during American Heart Month.

Research led by John Puskas, MD, professor of surgery and associate chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Emory School of Medicine, has shown that off-pump bypass surgery reduces the risk of complications for high-risk patients, such as those that are especially frail or those with diabetes, obesity, kidney disease or a history of stroke.

This conclusion comes from a 10-year history of coronary bypass patients at Emory recently published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

Puskas also recently presented long-term follow-up data from the first randomized U.S. trial to compare off-pump with conventional on-pump surgery.

The results from the landmark SMART (Surgical Management of Arterial Revascularization) study, which started in 2000, show that participants who had the off-pump procedure lost less blood, had less damage to their hearts during surgery and recovered more quickly than those who underwent on-pump surgery.

Beating-heart patients in the study also were able to breathe on their own sooner after surgery, spent less time in intensive care and left the hospital one day sooner, on average, than conventional coronary bypass patients.

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