Pilot study on prevention of lung injury during surgery for type A acute aortic dissection: no evident improvements with celsior flushing through the pulmonary artery.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Cardiopulmonary Bypass, published as a clinical trial.

Postoperative respiratory failure is a frequent and serious complication in patients with type A acute aortic dissection.

The aim of this pilot prospective study was to evaluate the effect of pulmonary artery flushing during selective cerebral perfusion (SCP) on lung function.

Who Took Part

The study group was 10 patients.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

Twenty patients referred for acute type A aortic dissection, who were free from preoperative respiratory dysfunction, were assigned prospectively and alternately to two treatment groups.

Pulmonary flushing was performed during SCP in group P (10 patients), while conventional Kazui technique was applied in group N (10 patients).

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a pilot study.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Cardiopulmonary Bypass study would be practical.

Lung perfusion consisted of single-shot hypothermic pulmonary artery flush with Celsior.

Lung function was evaluated by intubation time, scoring of chest radiograms at 12 hours after CPB, and PaO2/FiO2 assessed from immediately before surgery to 72 hours after termination of cardiopulmonary bypass.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alprostadil, Aortic Rupture, Cardiopulmonary Bypass, Disaccharides, Electrolytes, Glutamates and Glutathione.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a pilot study of Cardiopulmonary Bypass in 10 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2003 (The International journal of artificial organs), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.