BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY The study aim was to determine the safety and efficacy of a minimally invasive right mini-thoracotomy for aortic valve replacement (AVR) in patients who had undergone previous median sternotomy. METHODS Between January 2005 and December 2011, a total of 3,603 consecutive cases was retrospectively reviewed to identify patients with previous median sternotomy who...

BACKGROUND Less invasive cardiac surgery is widely adopted nowadays. Upper or lower partial sternotomy is an approach for less invasive cardiac surgery. We report results of less invasive cardiac surgery via partial sternotomy. METHODS From August 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010, 35 patients underwent cardiac surgery via upper or lower partial sternotomy. The preoperative characteristics, opera...

A best evidence topic in cardiac surgery was written according to a structured protocol. The question addressed was: is a minimally invasive approach for mitral valve surgery more cost-effective than median sternotomy? Altogether, 51 studies were found using the reported search, of which 7 represented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The authors, journal, date and country of p...

Although median sternotomy is the accepted approach to the heart for cardiac surgery, minimally invasive approaches including partial sternotomies have recently been developed. However, such strategies might lead to sternal overriding, instability, and fracture or division of the internal thoracic arteries. Furthermore, a full sternotomy would be required to address unpredictable intra- or post...

background the prevalence of chronic postoperative pain after cardiac surgery has been reported from 17% to 56%. objectives we aimed to compare the prevalence of postoperative pain between patients who had undergone cabg using the internal mammary artery (ima) and those who had undergone other cardiac surgeries including cabg using the saphenous vein or cardiac valvular surgeries. patients and ...

OBJECTIVE The advantages and disadvantages of minimally invasive Port Access mitral valve operation have not been defined relative to standard median sternotomy. A study was therefore designed to delineate differences in outcome from mitral operation via Port Access versus sternotomy in comparable patients. METHODS The records of 41 consecutive patients undergoing isolated mitral valve replac...

STUDY OBJECTIVES A variety of minimally invasive techniques have been recently introduced in adult cardiac surgery. Experiences with children and newborns are, however, limited. In this report, we present our first experiences with different methods of ministernotomies for closure of atrial septum defect (ASD) and ventricular septum defect (VSD) in pediatric cardiac patients. Also, the current ...

Objective: Our study aims to explore the efficacy and safety of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and median sternotomy in the treatment of thymoma-associated myasthenia gravis (MG). Methods: The clinical data of 73 patients with thymoma-associated MG from January 2004 to January 2010 in our hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The clinical curative effect, postoperative MG crisis and q...