Effectiveness and safety of internal rectilinear biphasic versus monophasic defibrillation in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

Background: Recently it has been shown that biphasic external shocks are more effective in the treatment of ventricular fibrillation (VF) compared with monophasic external shocks in terms of number of defibrillation attempts and maximal energy used for termination of VF. Biphasic defibrillators apply different biphasic impulse forms, depending on technology. To the authors' knowledge, there are no existing data concerning the effects of rectilinear biphasic internal shocks in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.