Catheter-based cerebral protection system in open cardiac surgery: An example of true hybrid surgery.

Postoperative stroke after cardiac surgery is an ominous complication. Clinical manifestations range from cognitive disturbances and altered states of consciousness to focal neurological deficits. Stroke is also a well-documented risk of catheter-based cardiac interventions. Recently, the growth of transcatheter procedures has led to the increasing development of devices that are designed to minimize neurological events during valve implantation.  In this video tutorial we demonstrate how to transfer a catheter-based cerebral protection technology into an open cardiac surgical intervention. The operation shown in this tutorial was an aortic valve replacement and the cerebral protection device implanted was the  Sentinel Cerebral Protection System (Boston Scientific, Marlborough, MA, USA).