What is ‘beating heart’ or off-pump surgery?
In the past, surgeons used a heart-lung machine to perform this delicate surgery. This machine allowed the heart to be ‘stopped’ for a while to perform the grafting. However, over the past few years, some of the surgeons also perform the surgery on a ‘beating heart’ and do not use the heart-lung machine. In this method, a device called ‘OCTOPUS’ is used and the surgery is done while the heart is beating. This method has several advantages but is technically more demanding. Almost all our surgeries are performed on the beating heart and have resulted in the patients experiencing less complications, needing less blood transfusions and spending less time in the ICU, thus shortening their hospital stay.
