cardiotomy

Indications

• cardiac surgery & cardiopulmonary bypass
  • CABG for coronary artery disease
  • congenital heart disease

Procedure

• incision in heart wall
• during cardiac surgery & cardiopulmonary bypass, it is necessary to aspirate variable but often large amounts of blood from the cardiac chambers & surgical field to prevent distension of cardiac chambers & air embolization & provide adequate exposure of the surgical field
• it is not practical to discard the blood, & most of it is returned to the extracorporeal circuit via the cardiotomy reservoir
• the cardiotomy reservoir receives blood that has been aspirated from the heart or pericardium or out of various vents

More general terms

• cardiac surgery (heart surgery)