Traditional Open-Heart Surgery
Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery
“ With minimally invasive methods surgeons can avoid cutting the breastbone and can operate on the heart by making a small opening of three to four centimetres on the left or right sides of the chest and accessing the heart through the ribs.” from Malaysia to Mecca, completed the pilgrimage, and came back without any problems.”
Another reason why Professor Shahrul’ s patients have such positive treatment outcomes has to do with the specific and intense physiotherapy programme they are encouraged to follow post-op. This is customised for people who had minimally invasive surgery and involves lifting weights, deep breathing exercises, stretching, and walking. For example,“ we advise patients on how long and how far they should walk in the morning, afternoon, and evening,” with a regular increase in the number of steps a few days after they started the regimen.
The aim of physiotherapy isn’ t to build muscles or increase stamina, explained Professor Shahrul, but to motivate people and get them back on their feet. In fact, most of them are afraid of doing physical activities after surgery because they don’ t want to put stress on their heart.
“ That’ s why we have to prescribe these exercises that mimic daily activities,” thus helping them to get back to normal in a short time.”
This significant surgical advancement was made possible by new instruments, in particular narrow tubes with a camera, that allow surgeons to visualise and operate on internal tissues through a small hole. Since its inception in the 1990s, the procedure has been refined to the point where most heart surgeries can now be performed in a minimally invasive way, including coronary heart bypass graft, heart valve surgery, and removal of cardiac tumours.
“ In my practice, about 98 percent of heart surgeries are done through minimally invasive methods,” said Professor Shahrul.
However, in some rare cases the advanced procedure isn’ t recommended. Such instances include emergency and urgent surgeries or those that are carried out to fix multiple problems like coronary artery disease and a faulty valve at the same time.
Even when patients are good candidates for minimally invasive surgery, complications could arise during the operation and surgeons may be forced to carry out a traditional procedure to save the patient.
“ Surgeons might inadvertently break the tissue they are operating on and when that happens it becomes very difficult to repair it through a small cut and then you need to make a bigger cut in order to repair the wound,” he explained.
The main way to reduce such risks is to have an experienced surgeon perform the operation, hence minimally invasive surgery experts are now the go-to specialists in most heart surgery cases.
GlobalHealthAndTravel. com ISSUE 1 | 2025
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