Between July 1968 and December 1975, 821 patients underwent open heart operations. In 596 cases the pericardium was left open and in 225 the pericardium was closed. Forty-one patients in the open pericardium group required reoperation and 23 of these had tamponade. Four patients in the closed pericardium group had reoperation but there was not a single case of tamponade. In most cases that requ...

The significance of the intact pericardium for cardiac performance was examined in 18 open-chest dogs. Myocardial chord lengths (MCL) in the right and left ventricle were measured simultaneously by ultrasonic crystals implanted in the myocardium of the anterior walls. In 14 dogs, the ultrasonic elements were inserted into the myocardium through needle openings in the pericardium (intact pericar...

Whereas most experiments on the mechanical function of the pericardium have been performed on dogs, very little is known about the applicability of those data to humans. To examine the tensile viscoelastic properties of fresh human pericardium, we have used the methods from our previous study of canine pericardium. Although the mechanical responses of canine and human pericardium were qualitati...