Technique of lung retraction during internal mammary artery harvesting.

We describe a novel technique for lung retraction during dissection of the internal mammary artery for its use in coronary artery bypass grafting. The lung is retracted using the blades of the Octopus (Medtronic Inc, Minneapolis, MN) suction stabilizer, without the suction connected. This technique can be used when the internal mammary artery is harvested by widely opening the pleura or by the extrapleural approach. This technique makes mammary artery dissection easy, and it can be used for harvesting internal mammary arteries bilaterally. The method described is simple, causes no impairment in gas exchange, and offers no additional expense, because the same stabilizer would be used later for the off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery.