Initial, continuous and intermittent bolus cardioplegia administration: efficacy of potassium-chloride and magnesium-sulfate as minimal additives for minimally-diluted blood cardioplegia.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Magnesium Sulfate and Potassium Chloride, published as a randomized controlled trial.

However, a large amount of crystalloid solution is infused into the myocardium in this method, which may nullify the advantages of BCP.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are older adults, both men and women.

Seventy patients undergoing elective coronary revascularization between 1997-2001 (M:F=55:15, mean age 67.6+/-7.5 years) were randomly allocated into one of 2 groups: Group C (n=35) was given the standard 4:1-diluted blood-crystalloid BCP, and Group M (n=35) was given minimally-diluted BCP supplemented with potassium-chloride and magnesium-sulfate.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Magnesium Sulfate and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

The BCP temperature was maintained at 30 degrees C.

Cardioplegic arrest was induced with 2 minutes of initial antegrade BCP infusion, followed by continuous retrograde BCP infusion.

Intermittent antegrade BCP was infused every 30 minutes for 2 minutes.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Blood, Cardioplegic Solutions, Coronary Artery Bypass, Heart Arrest, Induced, Magnesium Sulfate and Potassium Chloride.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Magnesium Sulfate and Potassium Chloride.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2005 (The Journal of cardiovascular surgery), a journal based in Italy.

More context: all human trials.