Several relatively new companies are making inroads into a new market for bypass assurance with devices that help cardiovascular surgeons intra-operatively assess the patency of each anastomosis. Cardiovascular surgeons historically have been resistant to adjunctive surgical innovations designed to help them do their jobs better. These companies, however, are betting that the difficulty posed by new beating heart coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures will motivate surgeons to slowly but steadily adopt their minimally invasive tools.
Cardiovascular surgeons have somewhat of an artistic
temperament; they are proud of their years of training, and the
resulting dexterity and techniques they develop that become the
core skills of their craft. Primary among these is the ability to
precisely suture a patent anastomosis, which is the juncture where
the coronary bypass graft is attached to the aorta and coronary
artery.
In traditional open coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery on a stopped heart using a cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) pump, physicians...