Arterial Injuries from Femoral Artery Cannulation with Port Access Cardiac Surgery

Abstract

Although minimally invasive (MI) cardiac surgery reduces blood loss, hospital stay, and recovery time, some MI approaches require femoral arterial cannulation, which introduces a heretofore unknown risk of femoral arterial injury. This study was performed to examine the risk of femoral arterial injury after Port Access MI cardiac surgery (PA-MICS) with femoral cannulation. Data were prospectively obtained on 739 consecutive patients who had PA-MICS with femoral cannulation between June 1996 and April 2000, identifying any patient with new (