Ohio inventions and firsts · First · 1967
Coronary artery bypass grafting
René Favaloro, trained at the Cleveland Clinic under Sones, put saphenous-vein coronary bypass into practice in May 1967 and standardized the technique.
At a glance
- Year
- 1967
- Company
- Cleveland Clinic
- Place
- Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Cleveland · Cuyahoga County
The story
After doctors could see blocked arteries, the next step was to go around the blockage. Several surgeons had tried different routes. Arthur Vineberg developed a procedure using the left internal thoracic artery that proved unsuccessful in humans, and Goetz made the first internal thoracic artery to LAD connection in 1960 by a sutureless method.
In 1964 Soviet surgeon Vasilii Kolesov did the first successful internal thoracic artery to coronary artery connection, and the same year Michael DeBakey in America used a saphenous vein to bypass from the aorta to a coronary artery.
René Favaloro, an Argentine surgeon working at the Cleveland Clinic, standardized the operation in 1967 using saphenous vein grafts, and later showed bilateral internal thoracic arteries were better than vein grafts. By 1979 about 114,000 bypass operations a year were done in the United States. Potassium cardioplegia in the 1970s lowered the risk.
So the Cleveland Clinic did not invent bypass from nothing, but its work with Favaloro made it a routine operation.
Timeline
- 1960: Goetz achieves the first internal thoracic artery to LAD connection, without sutures. source
- 1964: Kolesov performs the first successful internal thoracic artery bypass; DeBakey uses a saphenous vein. source
- 1967-05: Favaloro's saphenous vein bypass operation at the Cleveland Clinic. (Cleveland, OH) source
- 1970s: Potassium cardioplegia reduces operative risk. source
- 1979: About 114,000 bypass operations a year are done in the U.S. (United States) source
What it changed
- 114,000 operations a year in the U.S. by 1979.
- Favaloro's work made bypass a standard operation.
Why it matters
Standard heart surgery.
Who gets the credit is disputed
The Ohio claim. Rene Favaloro, trained at the Cleveland Clinic, put saphenous-vein coronary bypass surgery into practice in 1967 and standardized the technique.
The other claims. Earlier bypass claims, such as the internal-mammary operations and Kolesov's in 1964, have not been checked here.
Further reading
Sources
Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.