Since October 22 1997 – the day, when the very first heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation in Kosice was performed – cardiovascular surgery in Kosice has advanced enormously. Its first major development started after VUSCH Ltd. (The East Slovak Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases, Ltd.) was established in 2003. It continued further after moving into its brand new building. In september 2009 Department of Cardiovascular Surgery was transformed into the Clinic of Heart Surgery UPJS LF (Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice, Faculty of Medicine) and VUSCH, Ltd.
Nowadays, we perform 900 to 1000 operations per year and this number increases annually. Most of them, i. e. 800 – 900 operations are performed with extracorporeal circulation, the rest of them are performed without extracorporeal circulation (beating-heart surgery). The development of interventional cardiology is gradually influencing a spectrum of cardiac surgery performance. Cardiac surgery focuses mainly on patients with the most severe heart and blood vessel diseases. Moreover, there has been a growing number of combined operations performed (heart valve disease ₊ ischemic heart disease ₊ ablation of arrhythmias and others) with quality results compared to operations performed in Europe.
Clinic of Heart Surgery VUSCh Ltd. is famous for its progressive implementation of new operative techniques – for example, we were the first department in Slovakia to introduce off-pump surgical revascularization of the posterior wall of left venrticle, blood cardioplegia, intramyocardial implantation of stem cells, perioperative cryoablation of ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation, or implantation of left ventricular assist devices as a bridge to heart transplantation or total recovery.
At present, there is a team of 14 cardiac surgeons working at the Clinic of Heart Surgery. Five of them have specialty degree in cardiac surgery. There are three operating theatres well-equipped with modern facilities. Preoperative and postoperative care at our Clinic involves 30 standard hospital beds and 3 rooms with higher standard. Postoperative management is covered both by our surgeons and cardiologists.
Head of the Clinic of Heart Surgery is doc. MUDr. Frantisek Sabol, PhD., MPH. Also, there are five more cardiovascular surgeons with PhD degree, one just before finishing its PhD degree and two internal PhD students.
Furthermore, at the clinic there are internship programmes available not only for doctors from other hospitals, but also for medical students of Faculty of Medicine, Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice. Our cardiovascular surgeons regularly participate at various Slovak and international symposiums and publish their medical articles in prestigious scientific journals.
