Introduction
For several decades, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has been considered the gold standard treatment for coronary disease1,2. CABG has good outcomes 3because of complete revascularization (CR) and good graft patency. Off-pump CABG (OPCAB) was shown in a randomized trial4 and retrospective analysis 5 to have the same advantages as on-pump CABG while avoiding the morbidities associated with blood–machine interactions. However, these approaches are potentially associated with surgical invasiveness involving the sternum and wound complications. In the era of minimally invasive surgery, patients prefer durable outcomes and less invasiveness, which help them to recover their normal activity. Minimally invasive coronary surgery–CABG (MICS CABG) via left anterior thoracotomy is reportedly a less invasive and sternum-sparing approach for multivessel or left main artery disease 6-9. Unlike CABG via sternotomy, which has been studied for many years with convincing data showing its effectiveness and reproducibility, fewer objective data are available for MICS CABG, especially angiographic data regarding the graft patency and CR rates 10-12.
In MICS CABG, limited space for visualization and heart manipulation adds technical difficulty when constructing anastomoses to the lateral or post-inferior epicardial vessels 13. This might be associated with impaired graft patency and incomplete revascularization (ICR). After adopting OPCAB and minimally invasive direct CABG as routine practice for surgical revascularization, we transformed our practice to MICS CABG for multivessel and left main artery disease. Our preliminary experience made it possible to revascularize target vessels with a left internal thoracic artery (LITA) and sequential saphenous vein (SV) graft via minimal thoracotomy. In the present study, we analyzed a series of 186 consecutive patients who underwent MICS CABG with a focus on the postoperative graft patency and CR rates.