How the Procedure Works
CABG is an open heart procedure performed for more than 40 years for people with any degree of CAD. About 300,000 CABG procedures are performed each year in which one or more healthy blood vessels are taken from the leg, arm or chest and used to create "new" vessels for the heart. The resulting new bypass graft enables blood to reach your heart muscle by flowing around the blocked portion of the diseased artery. The increased blood flow reverses ischemia and reduces the risk of a heart attack.6
CABG can be performed one of two ways: "on-pump" using a cardiopulmonary bypass machine or "off-pump", often referred to as off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) where the heart is kept beating during the procedure.
- On-Pump Surgery: The majority of open heart cardiac surgery cases are performed using cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), or a heart-lung machine that supports critical physiological functions for the patient's body while the heart is being operated on.7
- Off-Pump Surgery: A type of procedure that does not stop the heart and is done without putting the patient on a heart-lung machine. Off-pump CABG may reduce complications associated with the heart-lung machine.8
