{"title":"Unlocking the Potential: Overcoming Barriers to the Adoption of Robotics in Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery.","authors":"Yazan N AlJamal, Husam H Balkhy","doi":"10.1177/15569845251325849","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251325849","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aims to identify the perceived barriers and factors contributing to the slow adoption of robotic technology among coronary surgeons.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We administered an anonymous online survey during the 2023 Society for Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Coronary Conference and included questions about factors associated with the lack of, or slow adoption of, robotics in coronary artery bypass surgery.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A total of 75 coronary surgeons completed the anonymous online survey. Of these respondents, 30 surgeons (39.4%) reported having more than 15 years of experience as independent coronary surgeons. Among the 71 surgeons (95%) who were not using robotic technology, the barriers to adoption (from most important to less important) were lack of skill or experience with robotic technology (mean score, 2.56 ± 1.84), followed by the lack of referral of patients with hybrid or single-vessel disease from cardiologists (2.81 ± 1.76), the need for more support and learning opportunities (e.g., hands-on courses, online courses; 3.44 ± 1.98), and more data to support the efficacy and safety of robotic coronary surgery (3.63 ± 2.22). Moreover, 38 surgeons (50%) expressed a willingness to consider robotic coronary surgery if industry provided appropriate devices such as stabilizers and automated anastomotic devices. Finally, 53 surgeons (69.7%) reported being unaware of the Thoracic Surgery Foundation and STS Advanced Robotic Cardiac Surgery Fellowship award with a coronary track.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The findings from this survey identify the barriers to adopting robotic technology in coronary surgery. Addressing these barriers through targeted interventions could foster wider acceptance and use of robotic technology in coronary bypass surgery.</p>","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"175-179"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143752512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Paul Werner, Martin Winter, Iuliana Coti, Amila Kahrovic, Martin Andreas, Thomas Haberl, Daniel Zimpfer, Marek Ehrlich
{"title":"State-of-the-Art Review: Advantages and Disadvantages of Femoral Versus Central Cannulation.","authors":"Paul Werner, Martin Winter, Iuliana Coti, Amila Kahrovic, Martin Andreas, Thomas Haberl, Daniel Zimpfer, Marek Ehrlich","doi":"10.1177/15569845251333344","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251333344","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The choice of cannulation technique for cardiopulmonary bypass remains a critical decision in cardiac surgery with direct consequences for intraoperative management and patient outcomes. Central and femoral cannulation represent the 2 dominant approaches, each associated with unique anatomical considerations, hemodynamic implications, and perioperative risks. The correct selection of a cannulation strategy should limit the risk of embolic events and associated complications such as vascular injury and stroke. The purpose of this review is to provide a detailed comparison of central and femoral cannulation techniques, with an emphasis on clinical scenarios and outcomes, recent innovations, and state-of-the-art technology. By critically analyzing current evidence, we aim to offer insights into the optimal cannulation strategy tailored to specific patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"148-157"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12090206/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143998504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Brittany A Zwischenberger, Jeffrey G Gaca, Keith Carr, Andrew Wang, Donald D Glower
{"title":"Alfieri Stitch in Minithoracotomy Repair of Degenerative Mitral Regurgitation: Potential Role and Outcomes.","authors":"Brittany A Zwischenberger, Jeffrey G Gaca, Keith Carr, Andrew Wang, Donald D Glower","doi":"10.1177/15569845251325260","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251325260","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>The Alfieri stitch is a mitral repair technique that can easily be applied in less invasive approaches to the mitral valve. However, the Alfieri stitch is seldom used and has raised concerns about producing mitral stenosis or recurrent regurgitation.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A total of 1,134 consecutive patients undergoing repair of degenerative mitral regurgitation via right minithoracotomy from 1997 to 2019 were examined from a prospectively maintained database. Propensity score matching was performed on patients with and without Alfieri stitch.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The Alfieri stitch was used in 697 of 1,134 patients (53%) with annuloplasty in all patients. Patients receiving the Alfieri stitch had more flail leaflet (<i>P</i> = 0.001), larger rings (<i>P</i> < 0.001), more chordal replacement (<i>P</i> < 0.001), and more cleft closure (<i>P</i> < 0.001). In 201 matched patient pairs, Alfieri patients did not differ significantly in baseline characteristics or procedure performed other than the Alfieri stitch. Matched patients with Alfieri stitch had similar clamp and pump times and no difference in postoperative course. Matched patients with Alfieri stitch had only slightly higher mean postoperative gradient (4.0 ± 1.5 vs 3.2 ± 1.3 mm Hg, <i>P</i> < 0.001). At 10 years, matched patients with Alfieri stitch showed nonsignificant differences in survival (<i>P</i> = 0.5), cumulative incidence of severe mitral regurgitation (5% ± 3% vs 3% ± 3%, <i>P</i> = 0.3), and moderate or more mitral regurgitation (17% ± 4% vs 12% ± 4%, <i>P</i> = 0.8) but more mitral reoperation at 10 years (6% ± 3% vs 1% ± 1%, <i>P</i> = 0.02).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The Alfieri stitch can be applied via right minithoracotomy to repair a wide variety of degenerative mitral pathology with minimally higher mitral gradient and a late trend toward increased mitral reoperation at 10 years.</p>","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"167-174"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143995548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nina Feirer, Nora Zahlmann, Keti Vitanova, Markus Krane, Hendrik Ruge
{"title":"Simultaneous Valve Implantation in Aortic and Mitral Position in High-Risk Patients.","authors":"Nina Feirer, Nora Zahlmann, Keti Vitanova, Markus Krane, Hendrik Ruge","doi":"10.1177/15569845251324166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/15569845251324166","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":"20 2","pages":"210-212"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144093510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marc W Gerdisch, Chanice Johns, Manesh Parikshak, Andrew Barksdale, Louis P Perrault
{"title":"Active Chest Tube Clearance Added to an Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERAS) Program Improves Outcomes and Reduces Resource Utilization.","authors":"Marc W Gerdisch, Chanice Johns, Manesh Parikshak, Andrew Barksdale, Louis P Perrault","doi":"10.1177/15569845251326084","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251326084","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>We initiated a cardiac enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery (ERAS) program in early 2019, protocolized it and applied it to all patients in 2020, and added the use of active chest tube clearance (ATC) in 2022. Prospective data collection of ATC patients was compared with historical controls to determine the impact of the device on outcomes.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study comprised 1,334 patients with 650 in the control group (group 1) and 684 in the ATC intervention group (group 2). Group 1 (historical control) consisted of 650 patients from January 1, 2020, to October 31, 2020, and January 1, 2021, to October 31, 2021. From October 31, 2021, to December 31, 2021, we introduced ATC use per protocol. Group 2 (ATC) consisted of 684 patients treated consecutively from January 1, 2022, to August 31, 2023, with ATC. The preoperative characteristics and operative procedures between groups were similar.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Patients in the ATC intervention (group 2) experienced a 41% reduction in the composite of retained blood syndrome (8.2% in group 1 vs 4.8% in group 2, <i>P</i> = 0.014). Postoperative atrial fibrillation was 17% reduced for group 2 (178 [33.8%] in group 1 vs 158 [28.1%] in group 2, <i>P</i> = 0.049). Group 2 had a 30% reduction in median intensive care unit (ICU) hours (51.6 [30.1 to 76.9] h in group 1 vs 36.3 [20.7 to 687] h in group 2, <i>P</i> < 0.001). Twenty-one patients (3.2%) were readmitted to the ICU after initial discharge to the step-down unit in group 1 and only 8 (1.17%) in group 2 (<i>P</i> = 0.013).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The addition of the ATC intervention to an established ERAS program in a high-volume private practice setting decreased complications, improved outcomes, and decreased resource utilization.</p>","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"194-200"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144003808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gianpiero Buttiglione, Can Gollmann-Tepeköylü, Jakob Hirsch, Daniel Höfer, Nikolaos Bonaros
{"title":"Totally Endoscopic Repair of Isolated Congenital Anterior Mitral Leaflet Cleft: A Case Report.","authors":"Gianpiero Buttiglione, Can Gollmann-Tepeköylü, Jakob Hirsch, Daniel Höfer, Nikolaos Bonaros","doi":"10.1177/15569845251324488","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251324488","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"217-218"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12090330/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144014416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Surgical Maneuvers for Aortic Valve Exposure Through the Right Anterior Minithoracotomy.","authors":"Oleksandr Babliak, Dmytro Babliak","doi":"10.1177/15569845251326546","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251326546","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"205-206"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143728569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Serdar Akansel, Luke J Rogers, Hristian Hinkov, Markus Kofler, Jörg Kempfert
{"title":"Endoscopic Aortic Valve Replacement With Bo Yang Annular Enlargement Technique.","authors":"Serdar Akansel, Luke J Rogers, Hristian Hinkov, Markus Kofler, Jörg Kempfert","doi":"10.1177/15569845251320620","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251320620","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"129-130"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143963521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Surgical Unroofing of Anomalous Origin of Coronary Arteries Through a Minithoracotomy.","authors":"Jessica E Wahi, Joseph Lamelas","doi":"10.1177/15569845251326633","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15569845251326633","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13574,"journal":{"name":"Innovations: Technology and Techniques in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery","volume":" ","pages":"208-209"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143718663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}