Jacksonville, Fla. - Patients of the The Cardiovascular Center at Shands Jacksonville have half the mortality rate when compared to the national average for a specific open-heart surgery despite treating a particularly high-risk patient population, a University of Florida physician announced this month.

The procedure, called coronary artery bypass grafting, involves removing healthy veins and arteries from the patient's legs and chest and transplanting them around the heart to improve blood flow to the heart muscle, said Fred Edwards, M.D., a University of Florida professor of surgery. The procedure is usually performed when other treatments fail to improve a patient's condition.

"These exceptional results are directly attributable to the dedication and expertise of the cardiac surgery team and the challenges imposed by routine exposure to patients with extraordinarily complex problems," said Edwards, who is also chief cardiothoracic surgeon at Shands Jacksonville.

The average mortality rate for Shands Jacksonville patients undergoing the procedure is 1.5 percent over the past three years, said Harry J. D'Agostino Jr., M.D., a UF clinical assistant professor of surgery. The national average mortality for this procedure is 3.2 percent, according to a national database used to track surgical trends. This database also confirms that the Shands Jacksonville cardiac surgery patient population is at significantly higher risk than the national average.

Numerous hospitals in the region refer some of their more difficult cases for this type of surgery to the Cardiovascular Center at Shands Jacksonville. The center also receives numerous local emergency cases in which patients lack proper preventative health care and often enter the hospital with advanced disease.

"Our results are even more striking because much of our patient population is at unusually high-risk for mortality after coronary artery bypass surgery," said D'Agostino, also a cardiothoracic surgeon at Shands Jacksonville.

Another unique finding for the surgery department is that the female and male mortality rates are the same for this procedure at Shands Jacksonville. Nationally, female mortality for the bypass surgery is higher than that of males. In addition, the hospital has a higher percentage of women undergoing this procedure.

A feature benefiting the success of heart surgery at the academic medical center is the designation of a special intensive care unit staffed with nurses and physician assistants who specialize in this type of surgical care.

D'Agostino greatly credits the entire heart surgery team for these results. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link," he said. "We are extremely fortunate in our medical center to have an abundance of strong links."

The Cardiovascular Center at Shands Jacksonville is made up of an interdisciplinary team of University of Florida physicians in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery, advanced practice nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacists and technicians.