Minimally invasive approaches to the aortic valve have been described since 1993, with great hopes that they would become universal and facilitate day-case cardiac surgery. The literature has shown that these procedures can be undertaken with equivalent mortality rates, similar operative times, comparable costs, and some benefits regarding hospital length of stay. The competing efforts of transcatheter aortic valve implantation for these same outcomes have provided an excellent range of treatment options for patients from cardiology teams. We describe the current state of the art, including technical considerations, caveats, and complications of minimal access aortic surgery and predict future directions in this space.
Keywords: aortic valve; minimally invasive; surgery.