EFFECT OF NORMOTHERMIC BLOOD CARDIOPLEGIA ON POSTOPERATIVE CONDUCTION ABNORMALITIES AND SUPRAVENTRICULAR ARRHYTHMIAS

Background. Conduction defects and supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) are common after myocardial revascularization using current methods of cold hyperkalemic blood or crystalloid cardioplegia. The current retrospective study was undertaken to assess the influence of normothermic blood cardioplegia on conduction defects and SVT. Methods and Results. The initial 92 patients underwent cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) at 28-degrees-C and blood cardioplegia at 6-8-degrees-C. The subsequent 120 patients underwent CPB and blood cardioplegia at 37-degrees-C. In all patients, cardioplegia was initially given by a combined antegrade/retrograde technique. The incidence of new postoperative conduction disturbances was significantly less in the normothermic group (p<0.001): 27.5% versus 57.6% immediately after surgery; 9.2% versus 41.3% 1 day after surgery; 4.2% versus 32.6% 2 days after surgery; 1.7% versus 19.6% on hospital discharge; and 1.7% versus 17.4% on late follow-up. The incidence of supraventricular arrhythmias was not statistically different: 40.0% warm versus 42.4% cold. The groups were identical except that mean cross-clamp times were significantly longer (73.8 versus 60.1 minutes), mean number of grafts were significantly higher (3.7 versus 3.4), and mean cardioplegia volume was significantly greater (5,627 versus 3,710 ml) in the warm group (p<0.05). In addition, the warm group had a higher incidence of prior transmural anterior myocardial infarctions (35% versus 9.8%, p<0.001) and emergency operation (16.7% versus 6.5%, p<0.05). Creatine kinase (CK) MB release was significantly less in the warm group immediately after operation (24.9 versus 60.9 units/1) and on POD1 (19.2 versus 46.5 units/l) (p<0.001). Conclusions. Normothermic cardioplegia is associated with a marked decrease in new and permanent conduction disturbances and postoperative CK-MB release. This suggests that a significant factor in the pathogenesis of conduction blocks is cold-related injury. Supraventricular arrhythmias were not affected by the type of cardioplegia given.