Perspectives on myocardial protection: warm heart surgery.
Continuous normothermic blood cardioplegia (CNBC), was recently introduced into clinical cardiac surgery and has generated great interest.  CNBC represents the evolution of concepts which were initially described in the 1950s but which were forgotten as hypothermia became the main ingredient in all cardioplegic techniques and in heart surgery in general.  The historical background to the development of CNBC is presented, as well as a review of the current state of knowledge about normothermic heart surgery.  The limitations and pitfalls of the method are highlighted, along with future developments and perspectives.
Panos
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AL
Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, St Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto.
Deslauriers
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R
Birnbaum
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PL
Salerno
T A
TA
D005544:Forecasting; D006324:Heart Arrest, Induced / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D007431:Intraoperative Complications / Q000517:prevention & control; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D013696:Temperature