Minerva anestesiologica
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Non invasive ventilation (NIV), primarily applied in cardiogenic pulmonary edema, decompensated COPD and hypoxemic respiratory failure, has also found a wide application in the postoperative period. The expanding indications to the transcatheter treatment of diseased left heart valves have led to an increase in cardiac interventional and diagnostic procedures in severely fragile cardiac patients. As an essential part of post cardiac surgery care is ventilatory support, NIV use has expanded to cardiosurgical patients. ⋯ The knowledge and the real time assessment of the possible effects of positive pressure ventilation on cardiopulmonary interactions in the clinical scenario of cardiac surgery will prompt the intensivists to tailor the respiratory support by non invasive ventilation to the individual patient. The influence on the cardiovascular system of positive pressure and volume delivered through the airways, which can be highly favorable on the impaired left heart and less favorable on the diseased right heart, should be considered when applying NIV in a cardio-surgical patient. As a consequence, the application of NIV in this setting requires an expertly skilled team, continuous hemodynamic monitoring and echocardiographic assessment.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Jul 2011
Rectal microcirculatory alterations after elective on-pump cardiac surgery.
Hemodynamic changes, related to on-pump cardiac surgery, have been reported to impair intestinal perfusion. However, until recently, direct in vivo observation of the intestinal microcirculation was not clinically feasible, and the concept of altered intestinal blood flow in the setting of cardiac surgery depended on indirect observations from other techniques, such as tonometry and microdialysis. To establish the incidence of intestinal microvascular alterations after cardiac surgery, we performed direct in vivo observation of the microcirculation in a clinically accessible part of the intestinal tract in this setting. ⋯ After elective on-pump cardiac surgery, direct in vivo observation of rectal mucosa revealed a PPV <90% in 54% of all patients. At the same time, rectal microcirculatory blood flow appeared to be unaltered. Combining rectal SDF imaging with rectal tonometry revealed a 7% incidence of rectal-to-arterial pCO(2) gap >1.4,kPa, suggesting non-dysoxic perfusion in the majority of patients, despite the observed percentage of non-perfused crypts.