title: Robotic internal thoracic artery harvesting.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Great progress has been made in robotic surgery, and several reports on robot-assisted coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) have been published. Our team at Kanazawa University began using the da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) in 2005. We report our experience of using the da Vinci Surgical System for totally endoscopic internal thoracic artery (ITA) harvesting.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between December 2005 and May 2006, we used the da Vinci Surgical System to harvest the ITA through three ports placed on the left side of the chest in 10 patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All 10 ITAs were harvested successfully in a skeletonized fashion. The robotic harvesting time was reasonable at 38.8 +/- 25.2 min, and the average length of harvested ITA was 16.2 +/- 3.1 cm. After computer-enhanced ITA harvesting, seven patients underwent off-pump CABG and three patients underwent minimally invasive direct CABG. There was no mortality, and the postoperative patency rate of all grafts was 100%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The da Vinci Surgical System provides a high-resolution stereoscopic image and allows remote, tremor-free, and scaled control of endoscopic surgical instruments with seven degrees of freedom. Computer-enhanced ITA harvesting was performed safely with excellent results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Telesurgery, Kanazawa University School of Medicine, 13-1 Takara-machi, Kanazawa 920-8641, Japan.
authors.forename: Norihiko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ishikawa
authors.forename: Go
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Iino
authors.forename: Shigeyuki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tomita
authors.forename: Shojiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Higashidani
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kawachi
authors.forename: Noriyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Inaki
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000379:methods; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008323:Mammary Arteries / Q000601:surgery* / Q000637:transplantation; D008875:Middle Aged; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*; D020858:Tissue and Organ Harvesting / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed