Recovery after prolonged cross-clamping tepid blood cardioplegia: report of a case.

Despite a prolonged repetitive aortic cross-clamp time of 411 min, a patient who suffered a left ventricular rupture after undergoing mitral valve replacement following mitral valvuloplasty and Maze procedure recovered without any permanent residual left ventricular dysfunction. During the aortic cross-clamping we used tepid blood cardioplegia for myocardial protection. This case report serves to demonstrate the potential of tepid blood cardioplegia as an effective method of myocardial protection.