ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of death in western countries despite considerable advances in treatment strategies. In the twentieth century, technologies such as the heart/ lung bypass machine were developed to enable surgeons to operate on virtually any part of the system, including the heart itself. While these procedures have saved countless lives, they suer from relatively high mortality and morbidity rates due to their invasiveness. Coronary bypass procedures oen take several hours in the surgical suite, followed by several days to weeks of recovery in intensive care wards. e cost to the patient and/or their insurance carrier for these procedures exceeds $56,000 (Chapman and Liu, 2011). Many of the most severely diseased patients are excluded from surgery because of the danger associated with the procedure itself.
