Thinking about heart surgery? You've likely heard of both bypass and open heart surgery, but are they interchangeable? While 'open heart surgery' is a broad term referring to any surgery performed on the heart through an incision in the chest, bypass surgery is a *specific type* of open heart surgery.
Think of it this way: open heart surgery is the umbrella, and bypass surgery is underneath it. Other types of open heart surgery include valve repair or replacement, aneurysm repair, and heart transplantation.
Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), commonly called bypass surgery, creates new routes for blood to flow around blocked arteries in the heart. Healthy blood vessels from other parts of the body (often the leg, arm, or chest) are used to "bypass" the blocked arteries.
So, while all bypass surgeries are open heart surgeries, not all open heart surgeries are bypass surgeries. Understanding this distinction is important when discussing treatment options with your doctor.
