Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery

In the past, open surgery offered the only option for treating and repairing many heart conditions. These surgeries required days or weeks in the hospital.

Today, many heart patients receive advanced cardiac treatment without open surgery, lengthy hospital stays and large chest scars. The cardiac surgeons at CHI Saint Joseph Health are trained in the most minimally invasive techniques available, including robot-assisted heart surgeries. These options can greatly improve outcomes and help you get back faster to an active and healthy life.

For more information or to request an appointment, call 859.313.2255 or find a heart care specialist anytime online.

Open surgery requires a large cut in your chest (eight to ten inches), as well as general anesthesia and a cut through all or part of your breastbone. You may also be connected to a heart-lung bypass machine that oxygenates and circulates your blood during the surgery.

Now, thanks to groundbreaking advances in surgical techniques, minimally invasive procedures give many patients a far less invasive alternative to open surgery. For example, we can now replace aortic heart valves using a minimally invasive treatment known as transcatheter aortic-valve replacement (TAVR).

With minimally invasive techniques, small incisions can be made between the ribs to perform coronary bypass or make repairs to the heart or esophagus by using thoracoscopy – the insertion of a miniaturized video camera between the ribs.

Not all heart surgery can be done with minimally invasive procedures and some patients still require open surgery. At CHI Saint Joseph Health, your surgeon will work with you to fine the best and least invasive option possible. 

Minimally invasive valve surgery techniques offer several advantages compared to open-chest procedures. They include:

• Faster recovery. Patients can usually return to work or other activities within two or three weeks, which is much quicker than open-chest heart valve surgery.
• Shorter hospital stay. Hospitalization time can be reduced by as much at 50%. 
• Fewer complications. Because the breastbone (sternum) is not cut during minimally invasive surgery, chances for post-surgical complications and infection go down.
• Less pain. Decreased trauma to tissue and muscle results in less pain than open-heart procedures.
• Less blood loss. Because incisions are smaller, patients lose less blood and are less likely to require a transfusion. 
• Smaller incisions and less scarring. Only a few tiny scars and/or a two-inch scar remains after minimally invasive valve surgery. 

When surgeons operate laparoscopically (through tiny incisions) or through a catheter (a thin tube inserted into a blood vessel), they must use extremely small instruments that require precise movements. Robot assistance can help enhance surgical precision, which makes it possible for your surgeon to make smaller incisions that heal faster.

With some surgical procedures, CHI Saint Joseph Health cardiac surgeons use robotic devices, such as the da Vinci® Surgical System. When using these devices your surgeon is in control of the operation at all times; however, the robotic assistance provides your surgeon with enhanced surgical capabilities. Surgeons may use robotic assistance during heart surgeries such as mitral valve repair, revascularization procedures and bypass procedures. 

Find skilled heart and vascular care at any of our convenient Lexington and central Kentucky-area locations:

• Flaget Memorial Hospital—Bardstown
• Saint Joseph Berea
• Saint Joseph East—Lexington
• Saint Joseph Hospital—Lexington
• Saint Joseph London
• Saint Joseph Mount Sterling