Experience in setting up non-robotic minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting in a non-routine off-pump coronary artery bypass center.

Background: The safety of minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass (MIDCAB) has been proven. Nevertheless, reports on clinical outcomes in MIDCAB and the learning curve of this challenging technique in a non-routine off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) center are still limited. Here, we introduce our clinical outcomes of non-robotic MIDCAB.

Methods: Between August 2022 and March 2024, 72 consecutive patients with a mean age of 67.4 ± 9.5 years underwent non-robotic MIDCAB (defined as off-pump bypass grafting of the left internal mammary artery to the left anterior descending artery through left-sided mini-thoracotomy). We analyzed operation time and incidence of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE). Further, subgroup analyses included body mass index (BMI) with a cut-off of 30 kg/m [BMI ≧ 30: n = 18 (25.0%)] and body surface area (BSA) with a cut-off of 2.0 m [BSA ≧ 2.0: n = 34 (47.2%)].

Results: All patients survived, whereas MACCE occurred in 4 patients (5.6%). By correlation analyses, no learning curve for operation time was observed in all cases analysis (p = 0.79), but MACCE (n = 4, 5.6%) exclusively observed in the first 34 patients. Furthermore, BMI ≧ 30 or BSA ≧ 2.0 was not significantly related to longer operation time (p = 0.42 and p = 0.52, respectively) and MACCE (p = 0.26 and p = 0.35, respectively). In addition, body size had no effect on operation time according to multiple regression analysis (p = 0.36).

Conclusions: Our study suggested that implementing non-robotic MIDCAB can be safely accomplished at a center with no previous routine in OPCAB surgery, even for patients with bigger body sizes. MACCE occurs more frequently in the early stages when adopting this surgical technique.