Coronary Bypass (CABG)
Coronary bypass surgery redirects blood around a section of a blocked or partially blocked artery in your heart to improve blood flow to your heart muscle. The procedure involves taking a healthy blood vessel from your leg, arm or chest and connecting it beyond the blocked arteries in your heart.
Although coronary bypass surgery doesn't cure the heart disease that caused the blockages (atherosclerosis or coronary artery disease), it can ease symptoms, such as chest pain and shortness of breath. For some people, this procedure can improve heart function and reduce the risk of dying of heart disease.
Coronary bypass surgery is one option if you have a blocked artery to your heart.
You and your doctor might consider it if:
- You have severe chest pain caused by narrowing of several of the arteries that supply your heart muscle, leaving the muscle short of blood during even light exercise or at rest.
- You have more than one diseased coronary artery, and the heart's main pumping chamber — the left ventricle — isn't functioning well.
- Your left main coronary artery is severely narrowed or blocked. This artery supplies most of the blood to the left ventricle.
- You have an artery blockage for which temporarily inserting and inflating a tiny balloon to widen the artery (angioplasty) isn't appropriate, you've had a previous angioplasty or placement of a small wire mesh tube (stent) to hold the artery open that hasn't been successful, or you've had stent placement, but the artery has narrowed again (restenosis).
