If you've had a heart attack, you may have already had certain procedures to help you survive your heart attack and diagnose your condition. For example, many heart attack patients have undergone thrombolysis, a procedure that involves injecting a clot-dissolving agent to restore blood flow in a coronary artery.
This procedure is administered within a few (usually three) hours of a heart attack. If this treatment isn't done immediately after a heart attack, many patients will need to undergo coronary angioplasty or coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) later to improve blood supply to the heart muscle.
Heart Surgery Overview
Thousands of heart surgeries are performed every day in the United States.
Even though there is a shortage of donor organs, more than 3,400 people have heart transplants each year.
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.
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