A person trolling the Internet for videos might not expect to come across a broadcast of heart surgery. But if you happened to arrive upon the Web site of the Robert Wood Johnson University medical center, you would have seen just that.
For the sixth time last Thursday, the hospital aired a surgery on its Web site. This time, it was a minimally invasive procedure to repair an atrial septal defect in the heart of a 39-year-old woman.
Mark B. Anderson performed the surgery. He used the new "port-access" approach, which involves making a series of small incisions between the patient's chest and ribs.
Such an operation used to require a 12-inch vertical incision along the middle of the patient's chest and the breaking open of his or her rib cage.
"The procedure is not only less painful," Anderson said, "but [it] has fewer post-operative complications such as bleeding and respiratory compromise due to separation of the rib cage.'
An atrial septal defect is the medical term for an opening in the dividing wall between the two upper chambers of the heart, known as the right and left atria. The opening causes abnormal blood flow through the heart.
Four to 10 percent of people born with congenital heart disease have an ASD.
The port-access approach is also used for other types of cardiac surgery, such as limited access coronary artery bypass grafting and repair of the heart's mitral valve.
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital aired the Web cast in hopes of educating the public as to how relatively non-invasive heart surgery can be.
The hospital hopes also to apprise medical professionals worldwide of the advanced technology at its disposal.
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