Percutaneous Vascular Closure Device in Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery

Minimally invasive mitral valve surgery requires femoral artery cannulation for extracorporeal circulation, predominantly performed through surgical cutdown. Surgical groin incision is frequently associated with complications such as seroma and infection. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of a percutaneous plug-based large-bore vascular closure device (VCD) for femoral artery closure in minimally invasive mitral valve surgery.

This was a single-center prospective study comparing patients undergoing minimally invasive mitral valve surgery with femoral cannulation performed either through surgical cutdown or percutaneously with access site closure using a plug-based VCD (MANTA; Teleflex/Essential Medical, Malvern, PA).

From 2016 to 2018, a total of 268 (147 surgical cutdown, 121 VCD) patients underwent minimally invasive mitral valve surgery with femoral arterial cannulation of catheters sized 19-F or 21-F. Propensity score matching resulted in 109 matched pairs. In both the overall series and the propensity-matched cohort, VCD patients had a significantly higher incidence of Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 major access site vascular complications (overall cohort: 0% vs 4.1%; P = .013; propensity score-matched cohort: 0% vs 4.6%; P = .024). Bleeding did not occur in any group. In the overall series, surgical cutdown patients had a higher incidence of seroma (10.9% vs 0%; P < .001). Infection and seroma did not occur in the VCD group.

Percutaneous femoral artery cannulation using a novel plug-based VCD in minimally invasive mitral valve surgery eliminates traditional complications frequently seen with surgical cutdown with no femoral access site seroma and infection though at the expense of an increased risk for vascular complications.