Results of bypass

<body background="../_themes/expeditn/exptextb.jpg" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#993300" vlink="#666600" alink="#CC3300"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"> <b> <p>Results of Bypass</p> </b> <p>Coronary artery bypass is relatively common. In the US, about half million cases are done per year. Most people have 2-5 bypasses. There is not difference is risk between having 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 bypasses. The risk is the same, although it takes longer to do more. The whole operation takes about 2-3 hours and the heart is usually stopped about 1 hour. There is an incision in your chest to get to the heart and incisions in your legs to get the veins which are used for the bypasses. Bypass surgery is safe, but as with everything, there are risks. In general, the sicker you are before surgery, the sicker you are after surgery. Mortality if about 3% and the risk of stroke is about 3%. After surgery, about 5% have enough bleeding to require going back to the operating room to open the incision to stop the bleeding. This is not a big procedure and usually takes only about 45 min. You usually stay in the hospital 4-5 days after the surgery and it usually takes about 2 months to recover from the surgery.</p> <b> <p>Risk Factor for Death</p> </b> <p>These are the factors which have a higher risk. The most important by far is function of the heart, the stronger the heart, the better it is. This is why it is important to not wait until you’ve had several heart attacks before doing anything. Other risk factors are requiring an operation within 1 week of a heart attack, unstable blood pressure, worsening chest pain, or old age.</p> <b> <p>Long term Results</p> </b> <p>Survival after bypass is good. At 5 years, 88% of patients are alive and after 10 years, 75% are alive. Now, most people getting bypass are 60s to 70s, so that even for the people who did die in these statistics, ¼ are not related to the heart. After 5 years, only 5% of people will have heart attacks. At 10 years, 60% of people will not have any chest pain. Immediately after surgery, freedom from chest pain is about 90%. In the short term, the people who will have chest pain will be those people with diffuse disease all throughout the arteries so that you cannot bypass all the blockages. Up to 10% of bypasses with close within weeks after surgery if there is not enough flow in the grafts because the coronary arteries that you plug into are very small or if you don’t take aspirin. In the long term, you can get chest pain because the bypasses also get block up with time. At 10 years, about 50% of the vein grafts will be closed. The mammary artery graft is better and at 10 years only 10-15% will be closed but you can only usually do one of these grafts because you only have 2 mammary arteries and the one on the right side of the chest usually will not reach the heart well.</p> <p><a href="intro1-8.htm" target="_top">previous</a>    <a href="intro1-10.htm" target="_top">next</a></p> </font><table border="1" width="100%" bordercolordark="#660000" bordercolorlight="#CC9966"> <tr> <td width="16%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../index1.htm" target="_top">Home</a></font></td> <td width="16%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../services1.htm" target="_top">Services</a></font></td> <td width="17%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../info1.htm" target="_top">Info</a></font></td> <td width="17%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../faq1.htm" target="_top">FAQ's</a></font></td> <td width="17%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../contact1.htm" target="_top">Contact Us</a></font></td> <td width="17%"><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"><a href="../links1.htm" target="_top">Links</a></font></td> </tr> </table><font face="Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times"></font></body>