Simultaneous carotid endarterectomy combined with non-stop coronary artery bypass grafting completed by neurosurgery and extracardiac collaboration

   Cardiovascular disease is the most common disease that endangers human health, and patients can have life-threatening brain and heart attacks at any time. Coronary artery disease and carotid stenosis are both caused by atherosclerosis and often occur simultaneously. For patients with severe carotid stenosis combined with severe stenosis of multiple branches of the coronary arteries, coronary artery bypass grafting first is very likely to lead to cerebral infarction and hemiparesis; carotid artery surgery first is very likely to lead to heart attack and life-threatening. In the past, two operations were performed in two stages, which not only increased the patient’s pain, but also increased the patient’s cost. In experienced cardiovascular and cerebrovascular centers, simultaneous surgery can often yield good results.  Recently, a 71-year-old male patient was admitted to the neurosurgery department. The old man not only suffered from hypertension, diabetes mellitus, old heart attack for many years, severe stenosis of the left carotid artery, moderate stenosis of the right side, but also severe stenosis of three branches of the coronary artery! He had unsuccessfully undergone coronary stenting in an outside hospital.  The neurosurgery department attached great importance to the case, and consulted with the cardiac surgery department several times before the operation, and Director Wang Zhenyu instructed to ask the medical office to organize a hospital-wide consultation. Before the operation, the medical office hosted a multidisciplinary consultation and discussion with experts from neurosurgery, cardiovascular medicine, cardiac surgery, anesthesiology and other related departments, and concluded that a single combined operation on the same stage was more reasonable and could solve the threat of cerebrovascular disease and coronary artery disease for the patient without multiple general anesthesia operations. Before the operation, the Department of Anesthesiology also organized a special department-wide discussion.  On December 17, with the cooperation of the Department of Anesthesiology and the operating room, the neurosurgery and cardiac surgery specialists took the stage one after another and performed the combined surgery on the patient.  Neurosurgery Professor Wang Tao, Associate Professor Ma Changcheng and Attending Doctor Zhang Jia performed carotid endarterectomy first, which was successfully completed in 1 and a half hours. Halfway through the carotid surgery, Prof. Wan Feng and Associate Prof. Zhao Hong of Cardiac Surgery simultaneously took the lower limb vessels and performed open coronary artery bypass.  The operation lasted for more than 5 hours and was successfully completed after 2:00 pm.  On December 24, the seventh day after the operation, the old man recovered smoothly and was discharged from the hospital cured.  Concurrent surgery not only saves the patient from the pain of a second general anesthetic surgery, but more importantly, it reduces the possibility of heart or brain infarction in both surgeries and between the two surgeries, improves the surgical outcome, reduces the cost of surgery, reduces surgical complications and mortality, and improves the patient’s quality of life.  The successful completion of simultaneous carotid endarterectomy combined with non-stop coronary artery bypass grafting (CEA+CAGB) reflects the good mode of multidisciplinary cooperation and the strength of our hospital as a large general hospital, and marks the level of our neurosurgery, cardiac surgery and anesthesiology departments in the treatment of serious diseases of multiple organs in China.