BACKGROUND Remote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC) induced by brief ischaemia and reperfusion of the arm reduces myocardial injury in coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery patients receiving predominantly cross-clamp fibrillation for myocardial protection. However, cold-blood cardioplegia is the more commonly used method world wide. OBJECTIVE To assess whether RIPC is cardioprotective in CABG...

Preservation of myocardial high-energy phosphates correlates with the heart's ability to resume normal function following aortic crossclamping (AXC). The ability of the canine myocardium to synthesize and maintain ATP during 180 minutes of AXC was evaluated in 12 hearts subjected to either blood or crystalloid cardioplegic arrest. Group 1 hearts were arrested by infusion of 750 ml of blood pota...

Objective: Protection of the myocardium against ischemia/reperfusion injury is a major challenge in cardiac surgery and cardiology. A cardioprotective role of heat shock proteins (Hsp), in particular Hsp 70, against ischemia has been demonstrated. A prerequisite for clinical exploitation of high Hsp 70 levels in the heart during ischemia is the determination of the efficacy and the kinetics of ...

OBJECTIVE To compare oxidative stress after cardiac surgery in patients treated with two different methods of myocardial protection: warm continuous versus cold intermittent blood cardioplegia. To correlate oxidative stress with postoperative myocardial dysfunction. DESIGN Prospective, randomised, double blind, trial. SETTING Institutional centre of cardiovascular surgery. PATIENTS 20 pat...

This is a case of an 87 -year-old male who underwent successful repair of an acute ascending aortic dissection (Stanford Type A). Hypothermic circulatory arrest was used to provide cerebral protection during the performance of the "open" distal anastomosis. Continuous normothermic retrograde blood cardioplegia was used as a means for myocardial protection. To our knowledge, this is the first re...

_____________ _ The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of an alternative method of oxygenating a crystalloid cardioplegic solution to the use of a bubble oxygenator. Five hundred milliliters of 100% oxygen was introduced, using sterile technique, into 100 ml bags of Ringer's solution at varying temperatures (20°, 10°, and 4°C). The contents of the bags were shaken for one min...

Previously, we have shown that the pharmacological opening of the mitochondrial ATP-sensitive K channels with diazoxide (DZX) enhances the cardioprotection afforded by magnesium-supplemented potassium (K/Mg) cardioplegia. To determine the mechanisms involved in the cardioprotection afforded by K/Mg + DZX cardioplegia, rabbit hearts (n=24) were subjected to isolated Langendorff perfusion. Contro...

Background: Blood cardioplegia is a technique with many variations in its use. Intermittent cross clamping with Lidoflazine has proven to deliver good cardioprotection in our center. Question: Is tepid (32 ̊C) antegrade intermittent blood cardioplegia an efficient, safe and easy-to-use alternative to intermittent crossclamping with Lidoflazine in elective isolated CABG in low-risk patients? Prim...

BACKGROUND Fetal cardiac intervention represents a potential advance in the treatment of congenital cardiac lesions that increase in complexity during development. Prenatal repair of a primary defect might prevent pathologic blood-flow patterns that can result in hypoplasia of a cardiac chamber or great vessel. However, strategies to optimize fetal myocardial protection have not been studied. A...

BACKGROUND Despite improved myocardial protection strategies, cardioplegic arrest and ischemia still result in reperfusion injury. We have previously published a study describing the effects of propofol (an anesthetic agent commonly used in cardiac surgery) on metabolic stress, cardiac function, and injury in a clinically relevant animal model. We concluded that cardioplegia supplementation wit...