Manassas Man Becomes 30,000th Heart Surgery Patient
Falls Church, VA – (October 31, 2007) — This month cardiac surgeons at the Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, located on the campus of Inova Fairfax Hospital, performed the 30,000th heart surgery in Inova’s history. On Tuesday, Oct. 16, a 67-year-old Manassas man received a coronary artery bypass grafting, a procedure that detours blood around a narrowed or blocked artery in order to restore blood flow to the heart muscle.
“This is the one of our more commonly performed major heart operations,” said Nelson Burton, MD, surgical director, Heart and Lung Transplantation, Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, who performed the procedure. “The patient is doing very well and has returned home where he will continue his recovery.”
Inova Fairfax Hospital created its open-heart surgery program in 1977 when surgeons performed an atrial septal defect repair.
In the three decades since, the hospital has been the site of significant medical “firsts” and has celebrated a number of exciting milestones:
The use of robotics and the development of minimally invasive techniques have advanced cardiac surgery in the last decade. Today surgeons can access and repair parts of the heart with tiny incisions, which means a faster recovery for patients.
“The advances in technology that we’ve seen through the years have been astounding,” said Edward Lefrak, MD, medical director, Cardiac Surgery, Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, who founded the program in 1977. “The move to develop a comprehensive heart and vascular institute for both adults and children was a multi-step process forged by a team approach of physicians and the Inova administration.”
The cardiac surgery program that started in 1977 has grown and become part of the Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, a 156-bed facility that opened in 2004 on the campus of Inova Fairfax Hospital. The facility was built and constructed with the purpose of combining innovation and state-of-the-art technology with all aspects of a healing environment. It houses six operating rooms, an 11-room catheterization and electrophysiology suite, cardiac rehabilitation, an outdoor healing garden and an observation dome, used to educate area students about preventative steps they can take to care for their hearts.
U.S. News and World Report recently ranked Inova Fairfax Hospital’s heart and heart surgery program as one of the top 25 in the country. For more information about Inova’s heart services, log on to www.inova.org/heart.
Inova Health System is a not-for-profit health care system based in Northern Virginia that consists of hospitals and other health services including emergency and urgent care centers, home care, nursing homes, mental health and blood donor services, and wellness classes. Governed by a voluntary board of community members, Inova’s mission is to improve the health of the diverse community we serve through excellence in patient care, education and research.
Heather Perez Saiz, MA, LCSW, CCTSW, is the Independent Living Donor Advocate at Inova Fairfax…
Palak Shah, MD, MS Fairfax, VA — A research team at Inova Schar Heart and…
Jason Bonomo, MD, PhD, is a cardiologist at Inova Schar Heart and Vascular. Dr. Bonomo…
Update as of April 24, 2024: Inova’s structural heart team has now completed the first…
The Peterson Family Fairfax, VA, April 16, 2024 – Inova today announced a transformational gift…
Lauren Trahan, MS, RD is a Registered Dietitian. She serves patients in Inova Cardiac and…