Outcome of survivors of accidental deep hypothermia and circulatory arrest treated with extracorporeal blood warming.

Background: Cardiopulmonary bypass has been used to rewarm victims of accidental deep hypothermia. Unlike other rewarming techniques, it restores organ perfusion immediately in patients with inadequate circulation. This study evaluated the long-term outcome of survivors of accidental deep hypothermia with circulatory arrest who had been rewarmed with cardiopulmonary bypass.

Qualitative assessment of blood washing with the continuous autologous transfusion system (CATS).

A number of different blood-processing methods can be used at the end of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) to improve the quality of autologous blood. They include centrifugation, hemofiltration and cell-washing. They differ in processing time required, cost of disposables and the quality of the processed autologous blood product.

[Effect of postoperative retransfusion of autologous blood products on hemostasis in heart surgery].

In cardiac surgery a reduction of homologous blood products is mainly achieved by autologous blood salvage. Unprocessed retransfusion of autologous blood may induce changes in hemostasis. We assessed changes of activated clotting times (ACT) after retransfusion of unprocessed (1) oxygenator blood and (2) shed mediastinal blood.