Endoscopic harvesting of the left internal mammary artery

Minimally invasive coronary artery bypass grafting via left anterior small thoracotomy is routinely performed on patients with single coronary artery disease, but recently has been expanded to a larger population as a part of a hybrid treatment in multivessel coronary artery disease. While the methods of internal mammary artery harvesting used in these operations can be different, the endoscopic method is more advantageous than operations performed by direct vision, and thus should be used as a technique of choice. In this article, we present detailed description of endoscopic mammary artery harvesting focusing on anatomical and technical aspects.