Overview: procedure versus protection: an impossible separation

This overview focuses upon the fundamental cohesion between myocardial protection and mechanical repair for surgical success. Currently, our attention is directed toward the natural evolution of more complex surgical methods, while there is slower rise in interest in advanced methods of protection. The absence of manuscripts on myocardial protection in major meetings suggests that the concept of protection has been solved, even though there remain reports of use of intraaortic balloon and mechanical devices that appear when protection is inadequate. This Seminar volume will introduce a series of articles about risk patients for whom evolving methods of protection are used. We will point out frontiers of protection that should develop together with advances in technical surgical approaches so that these two essential components that insure the safe conduct of cardiac operations can grow together.