Use of profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest in complex intra-cardiac repair in adults.

Profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest is a well worked out technique for total repair of congenital defects in infants. Recently, it has been popularized for the repair of aneurysms of the transverse aortic arch. We have applied this technique of profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest in three other adult patients in whom conventional techniques would not allow safe and adequate complete repair of acquired intra-cardiac defects. The first patient, a 76-year-old female, had a large chronic ascending aortic aneurysm involving the aortic valve, as well as the innominate and left common carotid arteries. Resuspension of the aortic valve, resection of the ascending aneurysm, and reconstruction of the ascending and transverse aorta were performed under profound circulatory arrest. In addition, multi-dose hypothermic blood K+ cardioplegia was utilized to protect the myocardium. The second patient underwent valve replacement during a period of circulatory arrest because of extensive calcification of the entire ascending aorta and transverse aortic arch. Arrest time was 56 minutes. The third patient was a 54-year-old female and had a large patent ductus arteriosus with a 3:1 left-to-right shunt as well as significant aortic and mitral valve disease. The ductus was closed through an incision in the pulmonary artery during a 13-minute period of profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest. Aortic valve replacement and mitral repair were also performed at the same time, utilizing conventional techniques. All three patients recovered uneventfully with no evidence of any significant neurologic defect. Long-term follow-up has shown improvement in functional classification in all patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)