There has been tremendous evolution and innovation in cardiac surgery. In the early years of the specialty, innovation focused on decreasing mortality and expanding the pathologies that surgeons could address during heart operations. In the current era, with operative mortality for routine procedures exceedingly low, the focus has shifted to decreasing perioperative complications, improving perioperative quality of life, and maximizing long-term outcomes. As a result, the onus has fallen on surgeons to shift away from the traditional sternotomy and offer equally effective operations through less invasive approaches.
In 2017, Professor Tristan Yan was appointed as the Head of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. In 2019, he was appointed as the clinical lead of Robotic and Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery Program at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He is recognized internationally for his specialty procedure – Minimal Access Aortic Surgery. He lectures abroad and operates in the UK and in South East Asia. He is a visiting Professor of Cardiac Surgery at St Bartolommeo’s Heart Centre in London, the largest cardiac centre in Europe. In the year 2017, Delacroix-Chevalier Company in Paris launched a full set of YAN surgical instruments, designed jointly with Professor Yan specifically for Minimally Invasive Aortic Surgery. These surgical instruments are now distributed in more than 30 countries.
He is the Head of Thoracic Surgery Department at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse Cancer Centre in Sydney. He is an expert in surgical management of primary lung cancers, major sarcomas, pulmonary metastases and malignant pleural mesothelioma. In his early career, he completed his Surgical Oncology Fellowship with Professor Paul Sugarbaker in the United States, one of the most prominent cancer surgeons in the world. He was then closely trained by Professor Brian McCaughan, a leading thoracic surgeon in Australia and Professor William Walker, the pioneer of thoracoscopic lobectomy in Edinburgh, where he mastered the techniques of minimally invasive thoracic surgery. This was complemented with further Robotic Surgery training with Dr. Bernard Park in New Jersey. Currently, he performs approximately 350 thoracic surgical cases per year, majority of which are done via a minimally invasive technique.
Professor Tristan Yan specialises in three areas of surgery: Minimally Invasive Aortic, Minimally Invasive Cardiac and Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery. Below are three subsections that are dedicated to informing you about each of these three areas of surgery. This website includes succinct information about how each kind of interventional treatment is designed to help you and what you can expect if you require an operation within one of these three areas of surgery. Our hope is that by informing you of the facts, it will bring you some understanding and comfort prior to, and throughout your day of treatment. Please feel free to click on the links below and work through the materials provided. If you still have any questions after reading this information please feel free to send Professor Yan an email and he will endeavour to help you with answers quickly.
Minimally Invasive Aortic Surgery
- Mini-Bentall Procedure
- Aortic root/valve sparing surgery
- Minimally invasive aortic replacement
- Hemi-arch/total arch replacement
- Elephant trunk procedure
- Frozen elephant trunk procedure
- Thoracoabdominal aortic repair
Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery
- Aortic valve replacement (Mini-AVR)
- Mitral valve repair/replacement (Mini-mitral)
- Robotic mitral surgery
- Total arterial anaortic off pump coronary artery bypass surgery (OPCAB)
- Tricuspid valve surgery
- Concomitant AF ablation surgery
Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery
- Robotic thoracic surgery
- Lobectomy (VATS lobectomy)
- Segmentectomy (VATS segmentectomy)
- Robotic thymectomy/mediastinal tumor resections
