[Current techniques in heart surgery]

Significant advances in open heart surgery during the last two decades were achieved in the field of the extracorporal circulation and the preservation of the myocardium. In the last few years, new therapeutical tools were introduced to treat patients with coronary artery disease. The transmyocardial laser revascularization (TMR) technique was introduced for clinical investigation 1990. Despite limited experience with this device in selected patients, some conclusions after a short follow-up period are available. Patients treated with TMR have significantly less anginal pain and need fewer hospitalisations. With PET follow-up studies, a better subendocardial perfusion at the expense of the subepicardial perfusion was demonstrated. On the other hand, there was no substantial increase found in terms of ejection fraction in treated patients. Minimally invasive procedures have also gained acceptance during the last few years, especially the minimally invasive coronary artery bypass procedures (MIDCAB). Introduced initially to treat solitary stenoses of the LAD without cardiopulmonary bypass, this procedure is actually often used in conjunction with PTCA for three-vessel disease in selected patients. Due to the different methods used and summarized under the term of MIDCAB, definite conclusions about the advantages of this method are difficult to formulate. There is a trend to reduced patency rates of the IMA bypasses in MIDCAB procedures compared to the conventional technique due to the difficulty with limited access.