Current status of endoscopic and robotic mitral valve surgery.

Doctor C. Walton Lillehei and his colleagues set a standard for innovation and new technology development in cardiac surgery. Robotic mitral valve surgery has taken a similar translational course proffered by Lillehei. We evaluated 341 video-assisted and 100 da Vinci robotic mitral repairs done at East Carolina University between 1996 and 2004. The 30-day mortality was 2.2% and 1% for the video-assisted and robotic series, respectively. Complex anterior and posterior leaflet repairs were performed in both cohorts. Repair results were excellent. For the da Vinci group there was a clear learning curve, with repair, perfusion, and aortic cross-clamp times falling significantly (p < 0.05). This reports suggests that robotic and endoscopic minimally invasive mitral surgery could evolve to become the standard of care.