Clinical Study of Venting Through the Pulmonary Artery

Chae, Hurn; Kim, Sung Ho; Suh, Kyung Phill

Abstract

From July 1988, open heart surgery was performed on fifty adults utilizing the pulmonary artery vent instead of conventional venting methods. The open heart procedures included were twenty coronary artery bypass grafitings(CABG), ten mitral valve replacements(MVR), ten aortic aneurysms(DA), and three ventricular septal defects(VSD). To determine the effectiveness of the pulmonary artery venting, non-cardiotomy procedures(CABGs') were classified into satisfactory, ordinary and poor group in terms of the degree of chamber dilatation throughtout the entire period of the operation. Again, cardiotomy procedures were categorized as degree 0, I, II, III and IV according to the clearness of the operative fields. Out of the twenty non-cardiotomy procedures, 17 cases(85%) were fallen into the satisfactory group, while the remained three cases into ordinary group. The degree of satisfaction, in cardiotomy procedures, was III or IV in patients having mitral valve replacement, aortic valve replacement, double valve replacement or dissecting aneurysm repair, and it was I or II in patients having ventricular septal defect repair, on the other hand. There was neither bleeding complication nor stenosis on the vent site. There was only one suspicious perfusion defect on routine postoperative perfusion lung scan. The study demonstrated that venting the pulmonary artery was very helpful in most of the procedures, because it was easy to reach, removal of the vent cannula was safe and simple and complications were trivial.