"Off-pump" techniques

Since the middle of the 1990s, new and less invasive cardiac surgery operation methods have been developed, collectively termed "minimally invasive cardiac surgery". Less extensive disease is treated minimally invasively in our clinic, i.e. through a small incision of a few centimetres or else through the same incision as described above. With minimally invasive procedures, heart-lung machines are sometimes not needed so their side effects are avoided (e.g. destruction of blood components). The postoperative course is usually shorter and has fewer complications. The indications are predominantly occlusion or complex stenoses involving only one vessel, incipient infarction and multimorbid patients with severe vascular disease (PAD, carotid stenosis, mesenteric artery stenosis and severe atherosclerosis of the aorta, especially the so-called “porcelain aorta“).