Technique to reroute blood around arteries explained

Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, January 10

Endoscopic Vein Harvesting (EVH) technique can be handy in heart bypass surgery, where patients with coronary artery disease require a bypass to reroute blood around blocked arteries to restore and improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart.

To create the bypass graft, the healthy blood vessels from another part of the body, often from the patient’s leg or arm, are removed or harvest.

Dr Virendar Sarwal, Director, the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at Ojas Hospital told about the technique today.

He said: “The EVH is patient-friendly for taking out vein grafts from the leg with the help of a telescope. The results are amasing with no long cuts on legs with just 2-inch two incisions.”

“It is minimally invasive and cosmetic advantage and prevents leg wound infections especially in women with no marks on legs,” he added.

Dr Sarwal said: “The EVH is being rapidly adopted as a routine surgical approach at many cardiac surgical centres worldwide. The rapid adoption of EVH is prompted by a dramatic reduction in invasiveness as compared with traditional open vein harvesting (OVH) technique.

He said: “Available evidence confirms two- and three-fold improvement in the rate of wound-related complications and infections for EVH.”

“The significant reduction in incision length when grafts are procured, using the EVH yields less wound-related pain, thereby translating into increased patient satisfaction,” he added.

“Although the required disposable equipment costs are increased, shortened length of hospital stay, elimination of leg wound infections and a reduction in non-infective wound healing disturbances (NIWHD) as compared to OVH maintains the cost-effectiveness of the EVH,” asserted Dr Sarwal.