New heart procedure gives new option to those too weak for surgery

• By KCBD NEWSCHANNEL 11. KARIN MCCAY, ANCHOR
• June 7, 2017

If a heart emergency is complicated with multiple blockages, the solution is normally bypass surgery. But what happens if those patients are even too sick for surgery?

 

Now there is another option. More and more heart centers across the country are adopting new techniques to give even the sickest patients new hope by using an artificial heart to save the patient… without surgery.

 

Dr. Subasit Acharji, a cardiologist and Texas Tech Physician says, "Now we have minimally invasive heart support which we can place in the cath lab itself. We can support the heart and even open up multiple blockages which could only be treated with open heart by-pass surgery in the past."

 

Dr. Acharji says this is very exciting because now even patients who were considered too high risk for surgery in the past have a new option to give them longer, healthier lives without the risk of bypass surgery and the difficult recovery that follows.