Special Reports

(WCCO) Thousands of heart surgeries are performed every day. In fact, an estimated 253,000 Americans undergo heart bypass procedures every year. Those surgeries traditionally take a good amount of time to heal. But robotic hands are making recovery quicker and easier.

Wayne Holmstadt has been a dairy farmer all his life. Walking back from the fields one day, the 67-year-old thought it was all coming to an end.

"As I was coming back," Holmstadt said, "I could only get about half way and I had to lay down on the ground because the pressure on my chest was getting so great."

It turns out that Wayne has a family history of heart disease.

"My father passed away from a heart attack when he was 50," he said, "And his father also was 50 when he passed away from a heart attack."

"Coronary bypass surgery is one of the most common procedures performed," explained Dr. Goya Raikar. Raikar is a cardiac surgeon at Regions Hospital in Saint Paul, MN.

Open heart bypass is common, but Raikar is recommending a not-so-common procedure for Wayne's bypass.

"The robots really help us help our patients," said Raikar.

He is talking about the da Vinci Surgical System by a company called Intuitive Surgical. It will allow Raikar to do heart surgery without opening Wayne's chest.

With traditional open heart surgery, surgeons make a 6- to 8-inch-long incision down the middle of the chest and the breastbone is sawed open to gain access to the heart.

With the robot, surgeons make small incisions between the ribs, on the side of the chest -- only four incisions, less than an inch each.

"One for the camera," explained Raikar, "two port incisions for the two robot arms that will translate our movements. And there's one last incision for the stabilizing arm."

Raikar actually performed the entire surgery about 15 feet from the patient. From a special platform his view inside the chest is in 3D and magnified 10 times. He used foot controls to adjust the camera. And his hands moved the robot kind of like a video game.

"It's truly intuitive for a surgeon to translate their hand movements inside a patient's body," said Raikar.

The first part of the surgery, Raikar harvested an artery from the left side of the chest for the bypass.

"What we'll first do I'll tease the artery from under the breastbone with the robot arms," said Raikar.

The patient's left lung is deflated to allow more room to operate. He's only breathing with one lung. It's important to note: the staff is ready at any time to do open heart surgery if something goes wrong with the robotic surgery.

As Raikar opened the heart sac, things are going very well. Robotic arms are charged for different needs. When the stabilizing arm goes in, it is used to basically hold the beating heart steady so he can sew the new artery into place.

At one point, the stabilizer moved off the location. While it looked kind of scary to a viewer, it's nothing an experienced heart surgeon hasn't dealt with before. It's soon back in place. The needles making stitches are about the size on an eyelash.

"We combine the open skills of suturing and tying with a computer interface and/or video game -- if you will," said Raikar.

The minimally invasive surgery can take a bit longer, but recovery time is shorter. Three weeks after the procedure, Wayne Holmstadt was back to work on his farm.

"I don't need to feel 40 again," said Holmstadt, "But I hope I can keep doing some of the things I have been doing."

Raiker is one of only about 15 surgeons in the country doing heart bypass surgery this way. The next step in robotic heart surgery is to have a surgeon in another town, state or even country help along over an Internet connection.

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