Far Eastern Memorial Hospital Cardiovascular Surgery Team has performed more than 8000 open-heart surgeries, including 3900 coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), 2700 heart valve surgeries and 56 heart transplant surgeries.

Our team is currently able to employ sternum-sparing minimally invasive approach for mitral valve, tricuspid valve and aorta valve surgeries. By adjusting the size and location of incision, patient's sternum remains intact. Consequently, both post-operational pain and restriction to pulmonary function are alleviated. Besides smaller wounds, minimally invasive procedure, compared to full sternotomy, results in shorter length of hospital and ICU stay, shorter period of incubation time and lower postoperative mortality rate. In addition, we found less cases of tissue adhesion in multiple minimally invasive surgery, which reduces the risk of second operation.

As for many cases of CABG, a relatively high proportion of patients is done with endoscopic atraumatic coronary artery bypass (Endo-ACAB), which avoids a large division of the sternum by using advanced endoscopic techniques. And, over 85% of patients were performed with beating heart CABG. Our team has harvested the great saphenous vein and radial artery needed for CABG "endoscopically" for more than 2300 patients. With these accomplishments, FEMH Cardiac Surgery Team becomes the best endoscopic vessel harvesting center in Taiwan and also the awarded teaching unit in Asia.

We have actively involved in cardiovascular treatment researches. Our goals are to make open-heart surgeries less invasive via various advanced treatment techniques, and to become the leading Cardiovascular Center. We have actively involved in cardiovascular treatment researches.

Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (MICS)

The traditional open-heart surgery involves vertical incision along patient's sternum to split the breastbone and gains access to the heart. This results in large volume of blood loss and a 30 cm long incision scar. Also, patient are required a longer period of recovery.

Since 2004, our team has actively developed Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (MICS), which avoids a large incision of the sternum and leads to about 3-7 cm small opening. Due to notably less postoperative pain and lower risk of infections, these advanced techniques have been very beneficial to our patients with cardiovascular diseases.