Carbon dioxide field flooding minimizes residual intracardiac air after open heart operations

Watts R. Webb, Lynn H. Harrison, Frederic R. Helmcke, Asuncion Camino-Lopez, Nabil A. Munfakh, Herman A. Heck, Peter V. Moulder

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

Transesophageal echocardiographic studies were used to monitor the presence of air bubbles in the heart after open heart operations. After cardiac valvular procedures all 22 patients managed with careful deairing procedures had persistence of air bubbles for at least 30 minutes and usually for 45 minutes. In 56 patients with CO2 field flooding, all foam disappeared in less than 1 minute in 48 patients and the remaining 8 had complete disappearance in 1 to 24 minutes. These observations demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the usual deairing maneuvers and the effectiveness of CO2 field flooding in displacing air.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1489-1491
Number of pages3
JournalAnnals of Thoracic Surgery
Volume64
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1997

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