Surgery Procedure

Did you know...
...Put your hand on your heart. Did you place your hand on the left side of your chest? Many people do, but the heart is actually located almost in the center of the chest, between the lungs. It's tipped slightly so that a part of it sticks out and taps against the left side of the chest, which is what makes it seem as though it is located there.

The surgery begins by the surgeons anesthetizing the patient. When the patient is asleep they begin to cut through and separate the breastbone and ribs. Then the surgeons place the patient on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine also known as a Heart-Lung machine.
This machine temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery (Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2006). The CPB machine is commonly used in heart surgery because it is difficult to operate on a beating heart and because operations that require opening the chambers of the heart need the use of CPB to support the circulation during that surgery.

Sutures are the stitches doctors and surgeons use to hold tissues of the human body together after they have been cut or torn by injury or surgery. These tissues include skin, internal organs, and blood vessels (Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2006). The sutures are strong (so they do not break), non-toxic and hypoallergenic (to avoid undesirable reactions in the body), and flexible (so they can be tied and knotted easily) and prevent the "wick effect". To prevent the "wick effect" the sutures must not allow fluids to penetrate the body from outside by passage through the suture, which could easily cause infections (Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2006).
The patient’s heart is then closed, taken off the bypass machine, and the chest is closed. The surgery takes three to five hours.

Once the CPB is attached, the heart is opened and the surgeons have to find the faulty valve. Once the valve is found, the surgeons slice around the edges of the valve and loosen it from the tendons that connect it to the rest of the heart. When this is done the valve is removed from the body and the surgeons determine the proper size valve to be implanted in the patient. The new valve is then inserted and sutured into place, while a surgeon frequently checks the valve and makes sure that the leaflets will not become stuck.