Dead Space, Compliance and Venous Admixture During Heart Surgery

Abstract

Patients undergoing heart surgery usually constitute a group of poor-risk patients who merit special precautions relative to the management of anaesthesia. As previously reported, it has been found that pre-operative arterial oxygen tension values in this group of patients are considerably lower than those encountered in other patients of the same age (THUNG and NORLANDER (1966)%, MARTINEZ and NORLANDER (1968)84). It is also well documented that many heart patients show impressive pathological changes in lung function, which increase the risks of postoperative pulmonary complications (DAMMA" From the Department of Anaesthesia (Head: 0. P. NORLANDER),

Changes in Functional Residual Capacity During Cardiac Surgery

“…This has probably not introduced any systematic errors in the assessment of blood-gas tensions as oesophageal temperature, which probably more closely reflects the temperature in the lung capillaries, does not seem to change much between the stages during which we measured PSo,-Thus, in 24 adult patients previously operated on in our hospital, mean oesophageal temperature was 35.8,35.5.35.6, and 35.5 °C, at the four stages depicted in table II (R. Fletcher, personal communication). Our findings, in respect of arterial oxygenation, do not support those of Norlander, Bemhoff and Norden (1969) who found no significant changes in venous admixture on sternal opening or on sternal closure. However, patients in whom the pleura was opened were included in their study, so the data may not be directly comparable with ours.…”

Clinical Experience of a Disc Oxygenator with Automatic Blood Level Regulation

“…There has been no instance of air embolism from the oxygenator in this series of 361 consecutive l P bl-lbrng% cases. Oxygen uptake ml/min/m2 in 21 random patients undergone total by-pass with the disc oxygenator (1968) (Norlander et al 1969) The bubble oxygenator had a higher degree of haemolysis than the disc oxygen-ca PH PO, PCO, bic. ator and has, therefore, only been used for shorter perfusions under 1 hour.…”