Minimal invasive cardiac surgery using port-access method in elderly patients

Cardiac surgery in elderly patients are increasing in recent years. From October 1997 to December 2004, we operated on 163 patients with port-access cardiac surgery, of whom 5 were over 70 years old (elderly group) and 158 were 16-69 years old (young group). The patients were 91 with atrial septal defect (ASD), 64 with mitral valve disease, 2 with coronary artery disease (coronary artery bypass grafting : CABG), and 10 with other (ventricular septal defect : VSD, myxoma et al.). This report presents result of port-access cardiac surgery in elderly patients. No significant difference was found between 2 groups in extracorporeal time, aortic clamp time, postoperative intubation period and postoperative hospital stay. However, the transfusion rate in mitral valve lesion were higher in elderly patient (100%) than in younger ones (18%). In conclusion, it seems that port-access cardiac surgery was to be a useful for elderly patient though contraindications were accepted such as peripheral arteriosclerosis and calcification of aorta.