Abstract
Surgical treatment of ischemic heart disease. Surgical treatment of ischemic heart disease (ICHS), nowadays consisting mostly in bypassing of the occluded or stenosed coronary artery, is at the present commonly used.
Apart from the 'classic' revascularization on a stopped heart using extracorporeal circulation it is today often performed on a beating heart without the use of extracorporeal circulation. Avoiding the extracorporeal circulation is usually less stressful, from which can profit particularly high-risk patients.
As a result of development of interventional catetrization methods the number of surgical procedures has been decreasing lately. Even so, for some patients with a more advanced form of atherosclerosis, surgical treatment is often the only possible solution.