Anesthetic Challenges in Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

The transition of cardiac surgery away from the traditional sternotomy approach toward more minimally invasive strategies continues to evolve over time. The first minimally invasive cardiac surgery was performed in 2005 in New York by a team led by Dr. Joseph T. McGinn. Anesthesiologists play in a key role in facilitating optimal outcomes in such procedures. Perioperative management of these patients poses specific challenges to the anesthesia team. The anesthesiologist must be skilled in numerous subspecialty skillsets including regional anesthesia and analgesia techniques, and elements of thoracic anesthesia practice, in particular one-lung ventilation (OLV), cardiac anesthesia, and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE).