Patent ID: 7264587

Claim:
A surgical procedure comprising: forming an incision; advancing an endoscopic cannula through the incision toward a target location on a patient's pericardium; introducing a pericardium-penetrating instrument through the endoscopic cannula into contact with the pericardium at the target location; forming an aperture through the pericardium at the target site to expose epicardial tissue; introducing a tacking instrument through the endoscopic cannula through the aperture in the pericardium for installing a plural number of tacks at selected locations in the epicardial tissue including one epicardial tack at a region of the mitral annulus below the circumflex coronary artery, and another epicardial tack at a region of the mitral annulus below the coronary sinus; and installing an element in contact with at least a pair of the plural number of tacks to exert tension therebetween.