This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Revascularization  • Cardiovascular System  • Surgery  • Surgical Interventions  • Cardiovascular/ Cardiothoracic Surgery  • Cardiovascular Intervention  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In reply

We are grateful for the kind comments by Dr Pocar and colleagues. In our comparison of 2 groups of patients, 20 underwent left heart bypass (LHB) and 39 had total circulatory arrest (TCA). Despite use of no adjunct, postoperative paraplegia decreased from 1 in 20 patients (5%) who underwent LHB to 1 in 39 patients (2.6%) who underwent TCA.¹ Although this difference is not significant (P>.99), it does remain below the published series of patients who received spinal fluid drainage.²

There were no significant differences in stroke rate (P = .65) that occurred in 1 of 20 patients (5%) undergoing LHB vs 4 of 39 patients (10%) in the TCA group; however, we have observed a lower trend when the aorta is not manipulated, particularly around the aortic arch area during bypass.

Subsequent to aortic arch anastomosis, it is crucial to switch arterial cannula to the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Sharo S. Raissi, MD

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?