Minimally invasive cardiac surgery

Introduction: Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (MICS) is an exciting new technology introduced about a decade ago but because of perceived difficulty has not been adopted widely. At the Royal Adelaide and Wakefield Hospitals in Adelaide we are in the third year of our MICS program. Initially the da Vinci Robotic system was employed but, as in other institutions, was abandoned in favour of direct access surgery using long shafted instruments. Particular stimulus was provided by our visits to Prof. Mohr's group in Leipzig, Germany. As with all new technology and surgical techniques we have conducted a rigorous and ongoing audit. In this paper we present our results.