Carbon Dioxide Field Flooding Reduces Neurologic Impairment After Open Heart Surgery

The Effect of Carbon Dioxide Insufflation on Cognitive Function During Cardiac Surgery

“…However, again no significant differences were seen between groups. A second study by the same group with a slightly larger group of 80 patients also showed no significant differences between groups with regard to neurocognitive testing 7 . However, the main difference in this study compared to their earlier work was the use of P300 auditory‐evoked potentials.…”

“…Despite CO 2 use, it has been recently acknowledged that there is still no single study that has shown it to decrease neurocognitive impairment 7,8 . Many have argued that the neurocognitive changes observed following cardiac surgery are primarily due to factors other than gaseous microemboli from the pericardial field, such as inflammatory cascade, particulate microemboli 9 or even gaseous microemboli from extracorporeal circuits 10 .…”

“…None of the five trials conducted so far in the literature has had these four design features that are mandatory to answer the question of neurocognitive benefit (Table 1). 7,8,11,68,69 …”

CO2-Based Tissue Expansion: A Study of Initial Performance in Ovine Subjects

“…Carbon dioxide was chosen as the filling medium because of its widespread use in common medical procedures (eg, laparoscopy, 8 intravenous imaging, 9 cardiac surgery for prevention of air emboli, 10 and subcutaneous body sculpting 11 ). CO 2 gas insufflation is preferred by most laparoscopic surgeons because it has a high diffusion coefficient and is a normal metabolic end-product rapidly cleared from the body.…”

Beating Heart Mitral Valve Surgery: How to Test Mitral Valve Competence After Repair?

“…The only possibility of testing the adequacy of mitral valve repair with the water‐leaking test is using an induced ventricular fibrillation on this step in order to exclude the forceful contractions of the left ventricle. Filling the surgical space with CO 2 during the procedure may help for decreasing the neurologic complications related to the air embolism 5 …”