Evolution of Automation in Open-Heart Surgery

Evolution of Automation in Open-Heart Surgery

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Abstract

With the onset of technology in the healthcare sector, several heart complications have become manageable. According to the Texas Heart Institute, over a thousand heart surgeries take place daily in the United States of America. This statistic shows that open heart operation has undergone a massive transformation in the past few decades. Unlike a decade ago surgeons now perform up to 500,000 open heart surgeries on a single day. One major problem, however, that faces the advancement in technology in open heart surgery is the shortages of donor organs such as the heart. These deficiencies often cause a huge problem especially in heart transplant as patients normally fail to find willing donors easily and the majority of deaths occur due to this reason. However, since the because of the advancement in technology, there have been great evolutions that have entirely changed open heart surgery procedure for the better. This research therefore focuses on evolution of the open heart surgery in the technologically advancing environment

Keywords: Coronary arteries bypass grafting (CABG), Minimal Invasive Techniques, heart-lung machine, cardiopulmonary bypass machine, perfusion technology, and heart transplant.

Has Open-Heart Surgery Evolved In The Past Decade?

In around three decades ago, there have been a significant number of technological advances, and the most notable ones being: heart - lung machines, surface cooling, robot-assisted operations, and the minimally invasive surgery. These invasions have completely changed the face of open heart surgery for the better. Initial attempts to perform open hearts surgery bore less success due to several complications such as poor visualization, lack of appropriate types of equipment, less knowledge and expertise in surgery, sterilizers among other necessary requirements. However, with advancement in technology and research in the heart surgery, surgeons can now perform complex open heart surgeries such as the coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), valve repair and replacement among others (Siddiqui, Paras, and Jalal, 2012).

Surprisingly, many operations are now possible with minimal incision since the invention of the minimally invasive surgical approaches. However, even though technology has foreseen the introduction of minimally invasive approaches in heart surgery there have been an increase in surgical technicality – and a potential drop in safety margin among patients. The decrease in safety margin has mainly been due to disadvantages posed by minimally invasive techniques where limited body exposures are encouraged ("A Heart Surgery Overview - Texas Heart Institute Heart Information Center", 2016). This paper seeks to highlight the major transformation and evolutions in open heart surgery, and the main question that I intend to answer is: “have there been positive changes in open heart surgery in the last decade in particular with the improvement of technology?” The research seeks to answer some other sub-questions such as:

1. Have there been a reduced number of victims dying during the process?

2. How effective has open heart surgery become?

3. How did the invention of heart machine influence the health sector?

4. What role does the heart-lung machine play during open heart operation?

5. What is the specific role of body cooling techniques during open heart surgeries?

Gawande (2012) gives a detailed history of heart surgery since 18th century and how such advances have become a success to the current health system. He notes that the first successful open heart surgery was in 1896 by Rein and since then several others have followed. He argues that the common inventions that have left a mark in heart surgery are the hypothermic technology cooling system introduced by Lewis in 1952 and the heart-lung machine introduced by Gibbon in 1953. These inventions have continued to the 20th century where major surgical approaches and instruments have advanced (Gawande, 2012).

The minimally invasive cardiac surgery came because of technology, and KC, Staats, and Gino, (2013) note that even though this method is quite risky compared to other methods such as sternotomy and thoracotomy it has become appropriate. This is because minimal invasive cardiac surgery is an open