Medical Aspects of Open-Heart Surgery

Abstract

IN the ten years since a pump oxygenator was first successfully used during cardiac surgery on a human patient¹ the risk involved has been reduced enormously, but complications, many of them life threatening, are still encountered very frequently. In a recent series of 131 patients who underwent heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass, 187 complications were seen in 107 patients.² The early postoperative period, particularly, confronts the surgeon and cardiologist with a bewildering number of potential complications, some of which are understood and treatable, but the etiology of others is complex or obscure and their management leaves much to be desired. . . .