Surgical treatment of congestive heart failure in coronary artery disease

Heart failure (HF) is a pathophysiological condition, when the heart can not provide adequate blood flow to the body organs. The main cause of HF is now ischemic heart disease (IHD), and the number of patients with HF in aging society is growing. HF is becoming the leading cause of death. Medical therapy does not provide satisfactory results in respect of symptoms and survival (5 year survival 28-40%). Therefore there is a trend towards early invasive methods of IHD treatment: percutaneous or surgical revascularisation and surgical reconstruction of myocardial damage. Most common surgical procedure in IHD is coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). This treatment is safe and effective in patients with normal ventricular function (operative mortality 0.5%, 5 year survival >92%). Results in patients with impaired left ventricular (LV) function are better than conservative therapy, but still not satisfactory (operative mortality 8.4%, 5 year survival 65%). The modern surgical concept for improvement of ventricular function is left ventricular (LV) shape and volume restoration (SVR) accompanied by CABG. In cases of severe damage of myocardium resulting in left ventricular aneurysm or akinesia, SVR improves LV function and prevents further LV remodeling. At present it is under investigation whether SVR is of benefit for moderate-sized ventricles and NYHA class II symptoms. In case of ischemic mitral insufficiency mitral valve repair is a method of choice. The results of combined procedures in Heart Failure group (CABG + MV reconstruction or SVR) are better than CABG alone. Other surgical alternatives for HF treatment are: heart transplantation, ventricular assist devices (VAD), dynamic cardiomyoplasty, constrictive devices and cellular transplantation therapy. Heart transplantation is reserved for younger patients with less comorbidities. Shortage of donor organs and poor long-term results remains a main problem of such a treatment. VAD at present is still very expensive, and serves particularly as a "bridge to heart transplantation" or "bridge to recovery" rather than destination therapy. Despite of all achievements in medical or invasive HF treatment further basic and clinical works as well as new organization systems are necessary to find optimal strategies to reduce cost of care, improve quality of life and survival.