KPJ Cardiothoracic Service

Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in the surgical treatment of organs inside the thoracic cavity, generally the treatment of conditions of heart disease, lung disease, and other pleural or mediastinal structures. Cardiac surgery involves the heart and the great vessels, and thoracic surgery. Surgery in great vessels, such as aortic coarctation repair, Blalock-Taussig shunt creation, and closure of patent ductus arteriosus, became common after the turn of the century and falls in the domain of cardiac surgery, but technically cannot be considered heart surgery. One of the more commonly known cardiac surgery procedures is the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), also known as "bypass surgery." In this procedure, vessels from elsewhere in the patient's body are harvested and grafted to the coronary arteries to bypass blockages and improve the blood supply to the heart muscle.