**MINI OPCABG**

Federico Benetti, Natalia Scialacomo, Jose Luis Ameriso and Bruno Benetti

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/54880

**1. Introduction**

The majority of the worldwide Coronary surgery typically requires exposure of the heart and its vessels through median sternotomy and cardiopulmonary bypass, making it one of the most invasive and traumatic aspects of open-chest surgery.

Trying to decrease the risks of the CABG and its costs, in 1978 we repopularized the Off Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (**OPCABG**) [1-2] and expand the technique, addressing lesions of the circumflex system (Cx) and applying it to diverse clinical scenarios. We tested several surgical approaches, such as full sternotomy, including left, anterolateral, posterolateral and right anterolateral thoracotomies, as well as partial sternotomy [3].

The video – assisted techniques in the nineties allowed, for the first time, to dissect the left internal thoracic artery (LITA) without opening the pleura cavity. The LITA was anastomosed to the left anterior descending (LAD) through a small left anterior thoracotomy. [4-5-6] and a new method for coronary bypass was create [7].

From 1996, a new series of technological developments allowed, widespread application of the OPCABG and MIDCAB techniques surgeons to perform high quality reproducible anastomoses and demonstrate in the great majority of reports, a decrease in postoperative morbidity [9-16].

In 1997, we performed for the first time an ambulatory coronary bypass through a xiphoid lower sternotomy incision (MINI OPCABG) using 3D technology to assist in the operation [8], shortly after we would continue to expand the operation [17-18].

Here in this chapter we will describe the technique to perform the MINI OPCABG operation today in our institution.

© 2013 Benetti et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
