A technique of an upper V-type ministernotomy in the second intercostal space.

Since cardiac surgeons found themselves able to offer a less invasive access to heart and great vessels, one of the first techniques to satisfy the tendency of minimizing the surgical trauma during general cardiac surgical procedure was a ministernotomy. In the current paper, we present the technique of V-type ministernotomy in the 2nd intercostal space, which has been employed in our department from June 2007 in 85 consecutive patients (mean age: 58+/-18 years); those operations consisted of the aortic valve replacement (AVR), surgery of the ascending aorta and epiaortic arterial segment.