[Intraoperative control of the state of the arrested heart]

Monitoring the function of the operated on heart over time based on the principle of recording the effort of the myocardium at rest was tried under the clinical conditions after preliminary experiments on the hearts of rats and dogs. The study included 11 patients operated on for aortal, mitral and multi-valvular prosthetics under pharmacological cardioplegia. Such monitoring enables an objective appraisal of the heart status, Besides, it makes it possible to decide on whether repeated administration of cardioplegic solutions is required, to specify the times of reoxygenation and to prognose the pattern of the heart function recovery after operation is over. The data obtained helped detect some disadvantages of the generally accepted method of pharmacological cardioplegia.