Development and clinical application of vascular clamp for minimally invasive surgery of the aorta

Developments in cardiovascular surgery progress towards minimalising the surgical trauma and therefore towards lower morbidity, faster rehabilitation, shorter hospital stay and better estetic outcome of the surgery. Surgical trauma is reduced with smaller incision of the chest and abdominal wall which lowers tissue and lowers blood loss during surgery. For classic cardiovascular surgery standardised and tested instruments are used whearas for minimally invasive surgery modified instruments, not yet standardised and clinically tested enough, are used. Standard vascular clamp for classic aortic surgery cannot be used for minimally invasive aortic surgery. Therefore, the development of special vascular clamp would enable minimally invasive aortic surgery. Research project has three parts. The first part constitues of modeling and building of vascular clamp which will then be used for minimally invasive aortic surgery. We will collaborate with the tehnical faculty and their laboratories when modeling and building the clamp. In the second part we will prove the utility of the clamp and we will test it on a great number of patients. In the third part of the project we will show the advantages of the new clamp in comparison to the classic operation of the aorta.