Text Е. Cardiosurgery

Within the last 20 years a new branch of surgery — cardiosurgery has been developing successfully in our country. The beginning of its development was marked by the first operation on the heart performed by Academician A. N. Bakulev. It is due to the work of such prominent Soviet surgeons as Vishnevsky, Meshalkin, Petrovsky, Amosov, and others that great progress has been achieved in cardiosurgery. The lives of many thousands of people suffering from cardiac diseases and from those of coronary vessels have been already saved.

The operations on the heart are performed to eliminate the existing heart, defects, congenital or developed, and to restore the normal function of the heart.

The operation on the heart is preceded by various examinations, which enable the surgeon to make a correct diagnosis. The most important ones are listening to the heart, its X-ray examination, electrocardiograms, the revealing of heart murmurs, and clinical and biochemical blood analyses. Only having made an exact diagnosis and having come to the conclusion that the therapeutic measures have been ineffective the surgeon can perform the operation on the heart.

The operations on the heart are very difficult to perform because of the intricate (сложный) anatomical structure of the heart and because the heart constantly contracts.

Some operations are performed on the contracting heart, but such operations give the surgeon only a very short period of time for his surgical manipulations. Besides in such cases there is always the danger of the impairment of cardiac functions such as heart failure, fibrillation and others. In the presence of these impairments complete or partial arrest of blood circulation develops.

Such intervals of blood circulation result in the damage to some organs, for example, the brain can live without blood supply only four-five minutes; if the interval is longer the brain cells die.