Efficacy of del Nido cardioplegia in adult cardiac procedures with prolonged aortic crossclamp time.

Objective: Equivalent myocardial protection and clinical outcomes have been shown with the use of del Nido cardioplegia (DC) compared with blood cardioplegia (BC) in adult isolated coronary artery bypass grafting and valve patients. However, its safety and efficacy in cardiac procedures with aortic crossclamp times >90 minutes is still unknown.

Methods: From May 2014 to September 2019, 2506 adult patients at our center underwent cardiac surgery requiring prolonged aortic crossclamp time defined as 90 minutes or longer. Myocardial protection was achieved with BC in 1955 patients and DC in 551 patients. Two surgeons used DC exclusively and 5 used blood exclusively over the study period. BC was delivered anterograde and retrograde whereas DC was delivered anterograde only. Propensity score matching of several preoperative characteristics, including primary cardiac pathology, yielded 526 well matched pairs. Emergency and reoperative cases were included. Troponin T levels were drawn at 12 hours postoperative in all patients. Clinical data were extracted from our local Society of Thoracic Surgeons database. Subgroup analyses were performed on the basis of crossclamp time stratification.

Results: For the propensity score-matched cohort, the median crossclamp time was longer in the BC compared with the DC group (114 [interquartile range (IQR), 100-145] minutes for DC vs 153 [IQR, 122-200] minutes for BC; P < .0001) whereas intraoperative peak glucose was higher with BC (173 [IQR, 147-200] g/dL for DC vs 197 [IQR, 171-228] g/dL for BC; P < .001). In addition, perioperative mortality (3.4% vs 3.0%; P = .7273), stroke (3.2% vs 2.1%; P = .2504), renal failure (6.5% vs 4.6%; P = .1767), atrial fibrillation (34% vs 31.4%, P = .3575), intra-aortic balloon pump use (5.3% vs 4.6%, P = .5694), and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use (3.0% vs 2.9%, P = .8596) did not differ between DC and BC. Postoperative troponin T levels were 0.53 (IQR, 0.30-0.96) ng/mL and 0.62 (IQR, 0.38-1.07) ng/mL for DC and BC, respectively (P = .0024). Subgroup analysis revealed higher troponin T levels with DC for crossclamp times between 150 and 180 minutes. Survival rates at 1, 2, and 5 years were 93.3%, 91.1%, and 78.7% for DC and 94.5%, 91.8%, and 81.5% for BC, respectively (P = .5140).

Conclusions: In adult cardiac surgical procedures with aortic crossclamp times >90 minutes, comparable myocardial protection, perioperative mortality and morbidity, and distant survival were observed with the use of DC compared with BC. Higher troponin levels were seen in DC patients with crossclamp times between 150 and 180 minutes, but this was not associated with increased mortality.