A comparative study between hypothermic and normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass in open heart surgery in...

Open heart surgery was performed on two groups of dogs under extracorporeal circulation with or without hypothermia to investigate hemodynamic changes during extracorporeal circulation. During hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), arterial O2 tension and postoperative blood pressure were favorably maintained, indicating that hypothermic extracorporeal circulation can be performed for a long period of time. On the other hand, during normothermic CPB, the average surgical duration was significantly shorter, and marked shifts in the concentrations of various enzymes were suppressed. However, due to reductions in arterial O2 tension, the length of cardiac arrest time was restricted, demonstrating that this method is suitable for performing extracorporeal circulation for CPB of relatively short duration. If circulation circuitry can be improved, such as through the development of a surpassing oxygenator, normothermic CPB would incur less stress on the body, thus making it preferential to hypothermic CPB in most cases.