BACKGROUND Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with cardioplegic cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with myocardial injury. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a modified mechanical post-conditioning (MMPOC) technique has a myocardial protective effect by enhancing early metabolic recovery of the heart following revascularization. METHODS A prospecti...

BACKGROUND Primary benign tumors of the heart are extremely rare and usually difficult to diagnose for their asymptomatic signs. CASE PRESENTATION A 66-year-old woman was admitted for shortness of breath caused by a large left atrial lipoma combined with coronary artery disease. Next, we successfully performed simultaneous curative surgery for the large cardiac lipoma and coronary artery bypa...

Extracorporeal circulation has led to a great development in cardiovascular surgery during the last five decades. Its time-proven efficacy and safety have made on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) the gold standard method of surgical revascularization. However, coronary revascularization on cardiopulmonary bypass and the accompanying aortic manipulation are related to plenty of delete...

The clinical and prognostic benefits of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) are well accepted for certain subgroups of patients with ischaemic heart disease, and as many as one million patients undergo this operation annually on a worldwide basis. Most CABG patients require grafting of the three main native coronary arteries; for the last 15 years the “standard” operation has achieved this u...

O coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) is a technique of performing coronary anastomosis on a beating heart without instituting cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Coronary stabilizers (CS) are used for local cardiac wall immobilization and access to the heart can be achieved by a lateral, anterolateral, subxyphoidal or midsternal incision. With median sternotomy and use of CS, all sides of the heart can b...

OBJECTIVE The combination of total arterial revascularisation and avoidance of cardiopulmonary bypass may provide additional benefits to patients receiving complete arterial grafting with cardiopulmonary bypass. We performed a propensity-matched cohort study of complete arterial off-pump and on-pump coronary surgery and examined differences in in-hospital mortality and morbidity. METHODS Thre...

Currently coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is the most commonly used procedure for revascularization of coronary heart disease. However it may not be suitable for the patients with diffuse coronary artery lesions, for which endarterectomy is a way but it’s not feasible to thin coronary artery without inner lumen or to the immature plaque. In this case, it may be a proper therapeutic optio...

Telemanipulators have been introduced into cardiac surgery recently expanding the scope of minimally invasive techniques and enabling endoscopic cardiac surgery. Our aim was to evaluate clinical results of totally endoscopic single vessel bypass grafting on the arrested as well as on the beating heart. Since 1999, 44 totally endoscopic single vessel arterial bypass grafting procedures were perf...

The revival of off-pump cardiac surgery and the exploration of less invasive techniques for coronary artery bypass grafting, have lead to an increasing technical difficulty, as compared to conventional surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass. The moving target vessel in off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery, as well as the increasingly limited space in minimally invasive cardiac surgery were not...

BACKGROUND We report an intraoperative retrograde dissection of the aorta and its subsequent evaluation by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). CASE PRESENTATION A 78 year old woman with an ascending aortic aneurysm without dissection and coronary artery disease was brought to the operating room for aneurysm repair and coronary artery bypass grafting. After initiation of cardiopulmonary by...