When arteries supplying the heart muscle with oxygen-rich blood become partially blocked, restricting the blood flow, the heart is starved for oxygen. The result can be chest pain (called "angina"), severely restricting lifestyle. The end result can be a fatal heart attack.

 

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting, or "CABG" for short, is an effective way of treating these clogged or blocked coronary arteries by creating new passages for blood to flow to the heart muscle.

 

Generally, patients with disease in the left main coronary artery or disease in three or more coronary arteries should undergo CABG.

 

During bypass surgery, doctors at the Phoebe Heart Center take arteries or veins from other parts of a patient's body and graft on a "bypass" around the blockage, restoring blood flow to the heart.

 

Bypass surgery is a major operation taking from three to five hours, and the patient is generally hospitalized for several days. The restoration of the blood flow to the heart relieves angina pain, allows the patient to resume a more active lifestyle and reduces the chance of a heart attack.

 

The surgeons at the Phoebe Heart Center were the first in Southwest Georgia to perform this life-saving operation over 20 years ago, and have brought many new innovations in the procedure to this region since.