A 52-year-old man created local history when he became the first patient in the UAE to undergo a triple heart bypass that joins chest arteries with a wrist artery. The patient went to NMC Specialty Hospital complaining of chest pains for unstable angina. When doctors suggested he undergo the Total Arterial Revascularisation Triple Bypass Surgery on Beating Heart, which involves rerouting blood flow through rejoined mammary and radial arteries while the heart is beating, he agreed.

Now the patient is doing well and almost back to normal, more than two months after undergoing the procedure. 

Dr Girish Chandra Varma, the then chief cardiac surgeon at NMC Specialty Hospital, said the procedure was a cheaper and safer alternative to the conventional open heart surgery, which requires surgeons to stop the heart. Low risks "Because we do not stop the heart for the procedure, we lessen the risk to the heart, kidney and the brain. The cost is also lower because we don't need to use the heart and lung machine to keep the blood pumping," he said. He added that the surgery cuts down recovery time by three to five days. Dr Varma said the benefits of this procedure was that it provided the best and long-lasting surgical treatment for patients, through its use of radial and mammary arteries. "Live arteries mean they can get nutrition from inside the arterial wall, and mammary arteries will not get fat deposition," he said, adding that it was not a miracle cure for heart disease. However, despite the obvious benefits, he said the procedure was not as common or popular as conventional triple bypass because the beating heart surgery was "technically demanding".

Lima-Radial Y reroutes blood flow to heart Total Arterial Revascularisation Triple Bypass Surgery on Beating Heart (Lima Radial Y) involves joining mammary arteries with a radial artery from the wrist. Mammary arteries, also known as thoracic arteries, run through the chest and torso, carrying blood to the pectoral muscle and breasts. The surgeon then reroutes blood flow to the heart through this new conduit of mammary and radial arteries. This is all done over a beating heart, which keeps pumping blood to the rest of the body. The conventional method is to stop the heart, depending on a heart-lung machine to provide oxygen to the organs.