Open heart surgery

housands of heart surgeries are performed every day in the United States. In fact, in 2005 alone, surgeons performed 575,000 coronary bypass or valve repair and replacement surgeries. And even though there is a shortage of donor organs, in 2006, almost 2,200 people had heart transplants.

Years ago, many doctors thought that heart surgery was a dream. Surgeons during World War II had learned how to operate on the heart, but they could not carry out what they had learned because it was hard to operate on a beating, moving heart. Also, the heart could not be stopped for more than a few minutes without causing brain damage.

Two major advances in medicine made heart surgery possible:

• The heart-lung machine, which takes over the work of the heart.
• Body cooling techniques, which allow more time for surgery without causing brain damage.