Robotically assisted video-enhanced-endoscopic coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Since 1988, through fierce industry-driven competition and patients' preference for minimally invasive procedures, widely diffused through the media, laparoscopic cholecystectomy was universally adopted and rapidly became the "gold standard" for symptomatic cholelithiasis. Robotically assisted video enhanced-endoscopic coronary artery bypass surgery (RAVE-CABG) will most likely follow suit with its similar developmental processes for symptomatic coronary artery disease. Since 1998, there are currently two surgical robotic systems that have been used in a clinical setting for endoscopic coronary artery bypass (ECABG): the da Vinci and the ZEUS system. Although each has separate learning curves to overcome, as with any new technology, both offer the promise to contribute in the interests of reduced hospital days, earlier return to normal activity, less pain, better cosmesis, and the rethinking of surgical dogma such as wide exposure.