Abstract
Aortic stenosis si one of the most frequent as well as one of the most often surgically treated cardiac valve diseases in adults in modern society. There is a trend in modern surgery to shift from full median strenotomy towards minimally invasive approaches.
Obviously, they are more favourable for the patient, but more challenging for the surgeon. The aim of this review is to introduce the topic of minimallly invasive approaches in aortic valve surgery, their advantages and disadvatages in comparison with traditional full median sternotomy, and an assumption of future directions of this field (sutureless valve prostheses, TAVI, robotic surgery).
The most frequent minimally invasive approaches ( upper hemisternotomy and right anterior thoracotomy) are described in more detail.