Cardiothoracic Surgery

Our multidisciplinary team of cardiothoracic surgeons can claim many firsts, including the world’s first successful open heart surgery. We have extensive experience in the repair and replacement of heart valves using mechanical, tissue or donor valves, depending on your unique situation.

Heart surgeons at University of Minnesota have pioneered many advances in the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. We have a strong tradition of innovation and advancements in leading-edge cardiac surgery. Our heart surgeons implanted the first cardiac pacemaker in the 1950s and were involved in the first bi-ventricular pacemakers and defibrillators in the 1990s. They also have been at the leading edge of technology involving catheters for aortic treatment and robotics for pacemaker and coronary artery disease.

If your treatment involves a heart transplant, you can be assured that our program is one of the best. Our survival rates are well above the national average for patients after three, five and 10 years. Our surgeons were pioneers in heart transplants, performing the first heart transplant in Minnesota in 1978 and the state’s first heart/lung transplant in 1986.

Most of our patients leave the hospital fewer than two weeks after their transplant, and 80 percent survive five years or more. Our physicians are also involved in many heart failure and ventricular assist device clinical trials to keep our team on the forefront of new treatment options, and we are one of the few sites in the United States approved to train surgeons in transplant technologies. Our cardiac surgeons also perform lung transplants, and we have one of the leading transplant programs in the country.

Heart surgery is a treatment option for conditions, including:

Cardiothoracic surgical services include:

• Minimally invasive procedures
• Minimally invasive robotic surgery
• On- and off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting
• Valve repair and replacement
• Valve-sparing aortic root replacement
• Hybrid procedures on the aorta and coronary arteries with simultaneous surgery and stenting
• Treatment of aortic disease processes
• Thoracic aortic aneurysm repair
• Surgery for hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (formerly called IHSS), where surgeons remove part of the cardiac muscle from the septum to relieve high pressure in the heart. Alternatively, our cardiologists may shrink the septal muscle with intracoronary injections.
• Thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection treatment:
  • Deep hypothermia
  • Circulatory arrest
  • Antegrade and/or retrograde cerebral perfusion for central nervous system protection

Other frequently performed procedures include: