BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Open heart surgery usually comes with a long recovery time. Heart patients spend roughly a week in the hospital post-surgery, and it takes about 2 months to fully recover. Now a new procedure is available at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital that could reduce that recovery time considerably.
If you're someone who tends to be wary of hospital stays and surgeries, the Alpha Vac machine might be the answer to your problems. An alternative to open heart surgery, the technology itself is a couple years old, however, it was just used for the first time in Kern County.
"Alpha Vac is a device that is designed to remove masses from the heart that could be either a blood clot or a tumor or an infection," explained Dr. Eric Peck, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.
Peck says he recently used the Alpha Vac to remove a blood clot from a woman's heart, avoiding open heart surgery.
That woman, Kimberly Marchant, was referred to Dr. Peck after blood clots were found on her pacemaker.
"With this device, I was able to go through the groin and basically suction that material off the pacemaker and remove it," said Peck. "Patient was able to just spend one night in the hospital and go home the next day and return to work right away."
In a statement via Dignity Health, Marchant expresses her gratitude for the procedure.
"I was instantly relieved to have this option because I wouldn't have to miss that much work," reads Marchant's statement. "So many things in my life that were important to me would have come to a halt if I would have had to undergo heart surgery."
Peck says there are vast differences between Alpha Vac and open heart surgery. He says both procedures require patients to be under general anesthesia, but the operation time is essentially cut in half to about 2 hours.
The doctor added that the health complications are also significantly lower with Alpha Vac as opposed to traditional open heart surgery.
"There are complications with any procedure. With this one, they're very minimal. Some potential bleeding from the access site, but vastly lower from an open heart surgery procedure," said Peck.
Dr. Peck goes on to say this new form of heart surgery opens up new possibilities for patients who are experiencing similar issues to Marchant and adds that determining whether a patient is eligible for the procedure is dependent on the location of the clot, whether the Alpha Vac can reach it, and the potential success rate.
