In April 2022, a team at Duke Health performed what is believed to be the world’s first partial heart transplant: the living arteries and valves from a freshly donated heart were fused onto the patient’s existing heart.
The patient was a 5-pound newborn named Owen, who was born with a condition called truncus arteriosus, in which the two main heart arteries are fused together. In addition, one of Owen’s vessels had a leaky valve. Normally pediatric patients require multiple follow-up open-heart surgeries to replace the valves with larger ones. The goal of this procedure is to allow the valves to grow with Owen over time, extending his life expectancy.
Recent Journal Articles on CABG and Vein Harvesting
2021 ACC/AHA/SCAI Guideline for Coronary Artery Revascularization: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines
Published in December 2021 in the journal Circulation, this article consists of clinical practice guidelines and recommendations applicable to patients with or at risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Read more . . .
Endoscopic Vein Harvesting: A Guide for Approaching Difficult Cases and Assessing Patients Preoperatively
As stated in an abstract of the article, “This commentary aims to provide a concise guide of certain challenging patient factors that operators may encounter during endoscopic vein harvesting, and how to approach these patients in both the preoperative and intraoperative settings.” The article was published in Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery, September 2022.
Read more. . .
Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting in Octogenarians – Risks, Outcomes, and Trends in 1283 Consecutive Patients
A new study from Mayo Clinic examines the risks and favorable outcomes for CABG for patients over age 80. “The key is to carefully identify patients who can most benefit from the procedure,” said Kukbin Choi, M.D., the study’s first author. The article was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Read the Mayo Clinic news article about the study . . .
Read the study . . .
Endovascular Vessel Harvesting Surgery Videos
Endoscopic vein-graft harvesting in coronary artery bypass surgery: Tips and Tricks
An 8-minute video tutorial on endoscopic techniques for saphenous vein-graft harvesting using two widely used devices, one an open-tunnel system and one a closed-tunnel system. From the Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.
Watch video . . .
Endoscopic Vein Harvesting for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
This is a 4-minute teaching video from Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center.
Watch video . . .
Endovascular Radial Artery Harvesting
This 7-minute video from the Cleveland Clinic shows and discusses the harvesting of the radial artery.
Watch video . . .
Student Spotlight: Grace Chase
Credentials
RN, BSN
Student Status
Current student in NIFA’s RNFA program
City & State
Nashville, TN
Current Position
RN
Where did you get your RN degree?
Pensacola Christian College
How did you come to choose perioperative nursing?
I presumed I would go to CRNA School, so I took a job in IR [Interventional Radiology] when it became available.
What is the scariest moment you’ve ever seen at the table?
The MD was ballooning an SVC that had a tumor wrapped around it. When he put the balloon up, the tumor ruptured. The patient immediately vomited blood and coded. He didn’t survive.
What is one technique or RNFA trick you’ve learned from NIFA that you will use for life?
I don’t think I could narrow it down to one thing. I felt all the information was extremely helpful.
How do you feel having your RNFA will impact your life/career?
It will expand my nursing ability/scope of practice at home as well as abroad working with disaster relief hospitals.
Jobs Front
Click here for the RNFA job postings we’ve collected for you this month.
NIFA – Office Hours
Monday-Thursday, 8:00am – 5:00pm
Friday, 8:00am – 4:00pm
Practice Resources
Here are several of the most-in-demand sites for our students, prospective students and grads:
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this newsletter are strictly those of their respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of NIFA. NIFA does not give any express or implied warranty as to the accuracy of statements made by our contributors and does not accept any liability for error or omission. It is the responsibility of all perioperative personnel to work within and adhere to their facility bylaws and individual scope of practice.
As part of NIFA’s RNFA training, we offer a class in Endoscopic Vessel Harvesting (EVH). EVH is a surgical technique used in connection with coronary artery bypass surgery, in which a surgeon obtains a healthy blood vessel from another part of the body to reroute blood around blocked arteries to improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart.
A team from the University of Hull and Hull York Medical School, in England, analyzed human saphenous vein tissue taken from patients undergoing heart bypass surgery in a small pilot study. In an article by Katie Dickinson in The Independent, one of the researchers said, “We already know microplastics are in blood. . . . But it was not clear whether they could cross blood vessels into vascular tissue and this work would suggest they can do just that. Whilst we don’t yet know the implications of this on human health, what we can say is that from studies using cells grown in dishes, they cause inflammation and stress responses.”