Minimally invasive cardiac surgery for intracardiac congenital lesions

Objective: Minimally invasive cardiac surgery has recently been applied to the correction of intracardiac lesions. This report reviews our experience of minimally invasive cardiac surgery in 119 patients with intracardiac congenital lesions. Methods: From October 1995 to April 1997, 119 patients (48 male and 71 female, aged 0.9-65 years old, 18.5 ± 17.8) received elective minimally invasive cardiac surgery at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan for repair of atrial septal defect (96 patients) or ventricular septal defect (23 patients). The operations were performed through right submammary incision (ASD) or left parasternal minithoracotomy (VSD), under femoro-femoral or femoro-atrial cardiopulmonary bypass with fibrillatory arrest. Results: All of the defects were repaired successfully. The bypass time was 25-125 min (46 ± 18). The operation time was 1.5-5.2 h (2.8 ± 0.8). The postoperative course was uneventful in all patients. Follow-up (1.0-18.2 months, mean 7.3) was complete, with no late deaths or residual shunt. All patients were found to be in NYHA functional class I or II. Conclusion: Our experience demonstrate that minimally invasive cardiac surgery is a technically feasible, safe, and effective procedure in surgical correction of selective simple intracardiac congenital lesions, yielding good short-term results.