eResponse: Re: Is repeated administration of blood-cardioplegia really necessary? Free

First of all, we would like to thank Professor Bockeria for his interest in our article and for his comments. The following is our contribution to the topic.

1. We realise that our analysis did not come out with a clear statement of the suggested interval between re-infusions, but the main target of our analysis was to find out if the first shot of warm cardioplegia might cover >20 min safely. As our results confirmed that [1], our next step will be to try to specify the time frame between re-infusions, within which adequate myocardial protection can be achieved. This work is already in progress and we hope we will be able to publish its primary results this year.

2. We understand the concerns of Professor Bockeria regarding our short cross-clamping time. We would like to reassure him that our message was not to operate faster. However, being able to perform complete procedures within a short cross-clamping time enabled us to use a single shot of cardioplegia, and that is what made us question the 15-min interval stated in the literature. We think that re-infusions will be necessary in procedures with longer cross-clamping time, but the interval between them might be longer than 15 min.

3. We cannot agree more with Professor Bockeria that in-depth studies are still needed. The search for the ‘perfect cardioplegia’ still goes on.

Reference