Cardiac Bypass Surgery Made Easier

A new anastomosis system facilitates blood vessel connection during less invasive coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures.

The C-Port Flex A anastomosis system has been designed to enable automated, reliable, and reproducible connections of blood vessels during CABG surgery. The system is effective in creating compliant anastomoses (connections of blood vessels) in vessels as small as 1 mm in internal diameter and can be used in either on- or off-pump CABG procedures. The system has a flexible, rather than rigid, shaft, designed to allow the working end of the device to be inserted through a 12-mm diameter port to access the chest cavity and heart. The device is then loaded with the bypass graft vessel (inside or outside the chest cavity) and deployed to create the anastomosis to the coronary artery. The system is designed to enable completion of robotically assisted (including endoscopic) CABG surgery through four or five relatively small incisions between the ribs.

By replacing hand-sewn sutures with easy-to-use automated systems, the system provides cardiovascular surgeons with a rapid and accurate way to perform anastomoses, often considered the most critical aspect of the CABG procedure. The C-Port Flex A anastomosis system was developed by Cardica (Redwood City, CA USA) and has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The new system is a variation of Cardica's C-Port xA distal anastomosis system product line.

"We are excited about the clearance of the C-Port Flex A system because it gives surgeons improved maneuverability and brings us several steps closer to the possibility of performing truly minimally invasive cardiac surgery,” said Valavanur Subramanian, M.D., director of surgery for Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute (New York, NY, USA). "This device enables surgeons to consistently and reliably create automated anastomoses in areas of the heart that are difficult to reach, and particularly difficult to hand-suture, especially during beating heart procedures.”


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