Off Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft

Off Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft

Off Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft differs from CABG in that a cardiopulmonary bypass machine is not used to oxygenate and pump blood around the body.

When the heart is accessed using a sternotomy (an vertical incision down the middle of the chest), depending on the severity and difficulty in accessing the blocked arteries, the surgeon may choose to keep the heart beating as opposed to using a heart lung bypass machine. This is called “beating heart surgery”. As the name suggests, the heart is allowed to beat during surgery, and only a small area of it is immobilised by a special suction device.

Generally, patients undergoing beating heart surgery have a quicker recovery and spend less time in hospital than those who have been on a cardio-pulmonary bypass machine. This is because of the physiological insult to the body on having the blood passed through an external circuit (a bypass machine) and back into the body.

The Wellington Hospital is proud to be able to provide this procedure with the aid of our highly specialised cardiac surgeons and appropriate state of the art equipment.