Closing Open Heart Surgery: Saint Joseph's Performs Georgia's First Totally-Closed, Beating Heart Bypass Surgery

/PRNewswire/ -- Patients facing open heart surgery for coronary artery bypass or valve repairs just got some great news: open heart surgery doesn't have to be open anymore.

Sudhir P. Srivastava, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta and the world leader in performing beating heart, totally-endoscopic, coronary artery bypass surgery, has started performing the procedures in Georgia.

"Dr. Srivastava performed the first-in-Georgia procedure on Friday, March 20 and the patient was released on Sunday, March 22," says Kirk Wilson, president and CEO of Saint Joseph's Hospital.

"With robotic assistance, Dr. Srivastava performed the single coronary artery bypass through four small, dime-sized incisions reducing the patient's recovery time, trauma to the body and risk of infection."

Dr. Srivastava is one of the world's most experienced cardiac robotic surgeons and has performed nearly 1000 robotic cardiothoracic surgical procedures since 2002. Three hundred and fifty have been singe and multi-vessel (two, three and four vessel), beating heart, totally-endoscopic coronary bypass procedures (TECAB). TECAB is done through four or five fingertip-size incisions and associated with functional recovery in days rather than months compared to the other traditional approaches. Dr. Srivastava has numerous world's firsts in robotic and minimally-invasive cardiac surgery and has unmatched expertise in obtaining bilateral internal mammary arteries using the robotic surgical system.

"This TECAB procedure for obtaining the mammary arteries is the gold standard of treatment for patients," says Dr. Srivastava. "The benefits are proven: faster recovery, less scarring, reduced risk of infection and a faster return to normal living."

With the addition of Dr. Srivastava to Saint Joseph's robotics program, cardiac patients have a choice of 'closing' open heart surgery for most procedures.

Dr. Srivastava performed a double bypass procedure on Monday, March 23 and that patient also was able to be discharged two days later on March 25, much sooner than the typical five - seven day hospital stay required for traditional open procedures.

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