French national survey of the use of monitoring devices during cardiopulmonary bypass in 2001

Objectives. - To study the different monitoring devices used during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and to determine the factors, which may influence the choice of these equipments. Study design.-Survey. Methods.-A postal questionnaire was send to the 66 French cardiac surgery centres. Results have been analysed about the economic status (public health service or private institution) and the business of the centre (less than 500, between 500 to 800 and more than 800 cardiopulmonary bypass/year). Results.-The rate of answer reached 73%. In 40% of centres, the cardiovascular perfusionist was not alone during the procedure. The percentage of centres using a checklist was 80%, a neurologic monitoring 42%, anaesthesia depth monitoring 40%, venous reservoir level detector 52%, arterial line bubble detector 38%, cardioplegia circuit bubble detector 6%, transoesophageal echocardiography 48%, pipe's temperature monitoring 90%; oxymetry 44%, capnography 25%, SvO(2) 98%, blood gas analysis outside the OR 46% and computer records 35%. No difference was observed between public and private institution for these latter devices. However, a significant difference was noticed among the low, intermediate and highly busy centres for the use of checklist, the EEG monitoring, the pipe and water circuit temperature monitoring, capnography and location of the biologic analysers. Conclusion.-Equipments were not similar among the different French cardiac surgery centres. Furthermore, the French practice seems different from American, UK and Australian's one. These results highlight the need of establishing French guidelines, which are absent. (C) 2003 Publie par Editions scientitiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.