Access to the heart and closure of the resultant incisions and wounds have been considered major impediments to the growth of cardiac surgery. Nevertheless, during the 1980s and 1990s, the sternotomy was the most commonly performed surgical access procedure in the world. We discuss the evolution of various techniques to allow access to the heart and surrounding structures. Methods of closure of...

Over the past 30 years, minimally invasive cardiac surgery has progressed from single case reports of operations via thoracotomy and various procedures partial sternotomy to routine use mini-accesses as well fully thoracoscopic robotic techniques. It is aortic valve that implemented technologies most widely. The objective this systematic review present state-of-the-art approaches including pati...

Abstract Background TransCatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) is now established as an alternative for open aortic valve replacement in high-risk patients with severe calcified degenerative stenosis. Case presentation Here we report a case of 78 tears old female patient who presented six months following transapical TAVI pulsatile mass over the left anterior mini thoracotomy wound. Transth...

BACKGROUND Conventional reoperative mitral valve surgery by median sternotomy has several difficulties. We performed mitral valve replacement (MVR) under ventricular fibrillation (VF) through right mini-thoracotomy with three-dimensional videoscope for avoiding the problems. METHODS Between 2006 and 2011, we performed 257 cases of MVR, in which 125 cases underwent isolated MVR. Ten cases of p...

Objective: Access to aortic valve can be performed through small incisions. However, a considerable advantage of this approach has not been proven by randomized studies so far. We wanted to elucidate the opinion of patients when they are informed objectively about advantages and disadvantages of minimally invasive approach prior to operation. Methods: This prospective study was performed with 2...