|
|
||||||||
Ann Thorac Surg 2002;73:1837-1842
© 2002 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
uz Ta
demir, MD*a
, MDa
eref Küçüker, MDa
ener, MDa
a Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic, Türkiye Yüksek
htisas Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
Accepted for publication February 7, 2002.
* Address reprint requests to Dr Ta
demir, Kardiyovasküler Cerrahi Klini
i, Türkiye Yüksek
htisas Hastanesi, Sihhiye, Ankara 06100, Turkey
e-mail: otasdemir{at}superonline.com
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Methods. In the period between January 1996 and April 2001, 104 patients underwent aortic arch repair with the use of right brachial artery low flow (8 to 10 mL/kg per minute) antegrade selective cerebral perfusion under moderate hypothermia (26°C). Mean patient age was 52 ± 12 years. Sixty-four patients presented with Stanford type A aortic dissection, including 12 with acute dissection; 38 patients had aneurysmal dilatation of the ascending aorta and aortic arch; and 2 patients had isolated arch aneurysm. Ascending and partial arch replacement was performed in 50 patients; ascending and total arch replacement in 33 patients; ascending and descending arch replacement in 19 patients; and isolated arch replacement in 2 patients.
Results. Mean antegrade cerebral perfusion time was 39 ± 22 minutes. One patient with acute proximal dissection died because of cerebral complications. One other patient developed right hemiparesis, which resolved during the second postoperative month without sequela. Other than these 2 cases (1.9%), no other neurologic event was observed.
Conclusions. The technique of low flow antegrade selective cerebral perfusion through the right brachial artery may be used for a vast majority of aortic aneurysms and dissections requiring arch repair. This technique does not necessitate deep hypothermia, requires shorter cardiopulmonary bypass and operation times, has the advantage of simplicity, provides optimal vascular repair without time restraints and, in terms of clinical results, is as safe as other techniques for cerebral protection.
| Introduction |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Recently, many authors have published their experiences with antegrade perfusion techniques for aortic arch repair [68]. Some authors prefer and advise the use of antegrade perfusion as an adjunct to deep HCA [9]; some prefer to cannulate the brachiocephalic arteries [7]; some prefer anastomosing the grafts first to the arch vessels and then through these grafts perform ACP [8, 9]; and some have used either the subclavian or axillary artery for inflow cannula placement [10]. In this prospective clinical report we have presented our experience in aortic arch repair and included what we believe to be important simplifications for antegrade perfusion technique.
The right brachial artery is cannulated and low-flow ACP is instituted during aortic arch repair. Because the brachiocephalic vessels are not directly cannulated, the modified technique presented here is simple, decreases the risk of embolization, and provides better surgical exposure by not cluttering the field with cannulas and lines. Antegrade brain perfusion is never interrupted, providing whatever necessary time to the surgeon for arch repair. Only moderate hypothermia is used. Neurologic results in this series of 104 patients were excellent.
| Material and methods |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Surgical procedures
All patients were operated with anesthesia maintained using fentanyl; alpha stat strategy was used for acid-base balance during cardiopulmonary bypass. Rectal temperature, electrocardiogram, and arterial pressure in the left upper extremity were monitored. The cardiopulmonary bypass circuit consisted of a venous reservoir, three roller pumps (two for venting and cardiotomy suction and one for arterial return to the patient), and a membrane oxygenator plus heat exchanger.
The patients were placed in the supine position, with the right upper extremity in slightly more than 90° abduction and slight external rotation (Fig 1). Placing a towel compress under the upper arm region facilitated the dissection of the brachial artery. Dissection and cannulation of the right upper brachial artery and right common femoral artery, if the use was planned, were done prior to median sternotomy. Extracorporeal circulation, during only the early phases of our experience (20 patients), was established with two arterial return cannulas, which were joined with a "Y" connector leading to a single roller pump. But as we became convinced that single arterial return cannula in brachial artery provided satisfactory flow, we stopped using the femoral artery. Consequently 84 patients had a single arterial return cannula in the upper brachial artery alone. A bistage single venous cannula was positioned in the right atrium for the venous return. The left ventricle was vented through the left ventricular apex. The aorta was cross-clamped as soon as body temperature reached 26°C or before if ventricular fibrillation occurred. Myocardial protection was provided with intermittent antegrade and retrograde cold blood cardioplegia and topical cooling.
|
The skin incision should be made anterior to the basilic vein. The incision is carried down to the fascia of the biceps after identifying its medial border. The muscle is then retracted anteriorly; the neurovascular bundle appears under a thin aponeurotic sheath, which is then opened. The median nerve is exposed, mobilized laterally, thus exposing the artery (Fig 2). Then by passing a shoestring tie around the artery proximally and distally, arterial control is achieved. After heparin administration, arterial soft clamps are placed proximal and distal to the cannulation site. Transverse arteriotomy is made by scalpel. The artery is cannulated with a nonwire-reinforced venous return catheter (California Medical Laboratories, Irvine, CA), the tip of which is trimmed to 16 to 18F diameter according to the size of the patients brachial artery. The catheter is gently inserted into the artery, as its tip is positioned 5 to 7 cm proximal to the arteriotomy. The proximal shoestring tie is then fastened and secured by a heavy silk knot around it (Fig 3). The cannula is then connected to the cardiopulmonary bypass circuit as usual for any arterial return cannula.
|
|
After terminating the distal repair, with the head of the table tilted downward, the flow through the upper brachial artery cannula is increased gradually as the soft clamps on the brachiocephalic vessels are released. Air is removed from the vessels and grafts, which are then filled with blood, and the distal graft is cross-clamped. Normal flow rate is reached through the upper brachial artery cannula and rewarming is begun in accordance with the time necessary for proximal repair. Should a femoral arterial cannula have been placed, it is not used and is kept clamped during rewarming in order not to cause a retrograde particulate or air embolism.
Collagen-impregnated Hemashield (Meadox Medicals, Oakland, NJ) or collagen-coated Intergard (InterVascular, Cédex, France) grafts are used. For patients needing total root replacement, composite grafts are prepared with St. Jude bileaflet mechanical aortic valves (St. Jude Medical, St. Paul, MN). The distribution of the various repair techniques is shown on Table 1.
|
Data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. Because the aim of the study was to determine the neurologic outcome and because only one mortality and one transient neurologic event occurred, we did not perform a statistical analysis.
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Hospital deaths occurred in 8 (7.6%) patients: 5 of whom had proximal dissections and 3 of whom had semi-urgent acute dissections. Operative mortality for dissection and aneurysm cases was 7.8% (5 of 64 patients) and 7.5% (3 of 40 patients), respectively. Of these 8 deaths, only one was attributed to neurologic complication (0.9%). This patient had right-sided hemiparesis as she was admitted to the hospital and underwent semi-urgent operation for acute type A dissection. She did not show any sign of awakening postoperatively and died due to multiorgan failure on the eighth postoperative day.
Five deaths were due to low cardiac output and subsequent multiorgan failure or sepsis, although all were neurologically intact. Of these, 3 were reoperations: 2 had had previous coronary artery bypass grafting and 1 had an aortic valve replacement. The patient with previous aortic valve replacement had an ascending and aortic arch aneurysm of 9 cm in diameter and was operated on urgently because of hemodynamic instability. During his operation, fistulization to the right atrium and superior vena cava was observed. Repair of the right atrium and superior vena cava was made along with a modified Bentall operation and hemi-arch replacement. The patient did well at first, but developed low cardiac output and died on 10th postoperative day. Two other patients died because of pulmonary complications. Both had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Data on the 8 hospital deaths are presented on Table 2.
|
Postoperative hemorrhage requiring resternotomy occurred in 3 patients. Two of these were because of anastomotic leakage. Excluding these 3 patients, average packed red blood cell requirement was 2.2 ± 1.4 units and the average postoperative chest tube drainage was 634 ± 185 mL.
Complications involving the upper brachial artery cannulation occurred in only 1 patient. Radial and ulnar pulses were lost on the second postoperative day and the upper brachial artery was re-explored under local anesthesia. Flow was blocked distal to the repair site. Arteriotomy was reopened, embolectomy was performed with a Fogarty catheter, and an approximately 1-cm arterial segment was excised and then reanastomosed in an end-to-end fashion. The patient recovered without any further complication.
Hospital survivors have been followed up for 1 month to 5 years postoperatively. Average patient follow-up reached 2.2 ± 1.0 years. Four late deaths occurred 11, 14, 22, and 31 months after the operation, at least one of which was attributed to arrhythmia. Two late reoperations were necessary due to extension of the native aortic disease. The patients who were followed up were in NYHA I or II functional classes.
| Comment |
|---|
|
|
|---|
The ACP technique seems to be the more accepted physiologic solution. However, cerebral complications reported by authors using ACP differ widely [7, 9, 13, 15, 16]. These discrepancies may be due to different techniques used for instituting ACP such as direct cannulation [16] or various types of graft attachments to the arch vessels [7, 9]. All these techniques may have some detrimental effects because attaching the grafts necessitates cessation of cerebral circulation, cannulas and grafts will increase the clutter in the operative field, and direct cannulation of arch vessels may increase the risk of particulate and air embolization. Most authors blame the embolic events rather than global hypoperfusion for neurologic outcomes observed after aortic arch repair. Choosing upper brachial artery for cannulation site, as we prefer, overcomes all the mentioned drawbacks.
Use of this unilateral cerebral perfusion technique raises concerns about the adequacy of perfusion to the contralateral hemisphere. The two vertebral arteries and two internal carotid arteries supply the brain, and an extensive anastomosis (the circulus arteriosus) exists between them (Fig 4). The anterior communicating artery joins the two anterior cerebral arteries to each other; behind, the basilar artery divides into the two posterior cerebral arteries, each of which is joined to the internal carotid artery of the same side by the posterior communicating artery. Minor ophthalmic and leptomeningial collaterals also exist.
|
Hypothetically the absence of one of the three communicating arteries does not carry any risk for underperfusion because the blood coursing through the right upper brachial artery will perfuse the whole brain through the vertebral, basilar, and internal carotid arteries (Fig 4). The only combination that will carry the potential for contralateral underperfusion would be the absence of both anterior and left posterior communicating arteries; even if that is the case, not the whole left hemisphere but the frontal and temporal parts would be affected (Fig 4). This combination specifically has not been mentioned in the literature and we can probably assume this condition to be very rare.
Hoksbergen and coworkers [19] published their study on cerebrovascular atherosclerosis in asymptomatic patients, reporting anterior collateral pathway of the circle of Willis to be nearly always patent. In another study, researchers found that a posterior communicating artery as small in size as 1 mm prevented watershed infarcts among patients with internal carotid artery occlusion [20].
Adequacy of collateral flow in the circle of Willis can be tested preoperatively with invasive angiographic methods and pressure measurements. However, these methods carry a high risk of stroke and are not suitable for dissections and urgent cases. Functional measurement of collateral cerebral blood supply can be included in the planning of selective ACP using the right upper brachial artery and may be made at the time of operation before initiating cardiopulmonary bypass. The carotid artery backpressure reflects the collateral flow available at the level of the circle of Willis, but in the setting of dissection in which flaps may exist in the brachiocephalic vessels, this technique may have little value. In our experience, at the initiation of antegrade perfusion, visual assessment of the returning blood through left common carotid and subclavian arteries has been the most valuable proof of contralateral hemispheric perfusion, and its amount was always satisfactory.
Initially, the decision for using the right upper brachial artery alone for arterial return was undertaken for patients with known atherosclerotic plaques or aneurysm of the abdominal aorta in order to prevent retrograde embolization. As our experience grew, however, we observed that the single arterial return cannula in the right upper brachial artery was perfectly satisfactory for providing necessary flow both during ordinary cardiopulmonary bypass to the body and during arch repair to the brain. Consequently we stopped using the femoral artery.
Although some complications as brachial plexus injury and axillary artery thrombosis have been reported, many authors found that use of subclavian or axillary artery cannulation for cardiopulmonary bypass provided satisfactory flows [10, 21, 22]. The same can be said for upper brachial artery perfusion, because the cannula we use is about 18F, which provides a flow of well above 4 L/min. Technically, we believe that upper brachial artery cannulation is much simpler than cannulating the subclavian or axillary artery and in our experience is associated with fewer complications, which if they occur, are easier to repair.
The cooling of patients in this series was down to 26°C. Because antegrade perfusion is never interrupted, oxygen demand of the brain tissue at this temperature can be provided with a blood flow of 8 to 10 mL-1 · min-1 · m-2 without concern for the time spent on arch repair. Because deep hypothermia is not used, less time is necessary for cooling and rewarming, and its potential hazards are avoided.
Although in this series the mean period of low-flow ACP through the right upper brachial artery was 39 ± 22 minutes (range 19 to 80 minutes), 24 of the 104 patients had low-flow periods longer than 60 minutes. None of these patients had any neurologic complications and we have not encountered any serious systemic complications resulting from selective noncerebral systemic arrest in any patients.
In our current practice, this simplified right upper brachial artery perfusion technique is the standard for elective and emergent operations of atherosclerotic or degenerative arch aneurysms and dissections. It provides technical simplicity, better surgical exposure with enhanced comfort for the surgeon, longer safe-time periods for arch repair, shorter cardiopulmonary bypass times, fewer bleeding complications, less risk of retrograde cerebral embolization, and lastly, excellent neurologic results for the patient.
| Acknowledgments |
|---|
|
|
|---|
| References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
A. Akgul Behcet's Inflammatory Vessels for Cannulation in Inflammatory Aortic Repair. Ann. Thorac. Surg., May 1, 2009; 87(5): 1649 - 1649. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
P. G. Malvindi, G. Scrascia, and N. Vitale Is unilateral antegrade cerebral perfusion equivalent to bilateral cerebral perfusion for patients undergoing aortic arch surgery? Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery, October 1, 2008; 7(5): 891 - 897. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
O. Tasdemir, B. Yilmazkaya, S. Gurkahraman, and O. Z. Yondem Brachial Cannulation Instead of Axillary and Subclavian Cannulation Ann. Thorac. Surg., September 1, 2008; 86(3): 1057 - 1058. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
H. Gulbins Reply Ann. Thorac. Surg., September 1, 2008; 86(3): 1058 - 1058. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
P. Merkkola, H. Tulla, A. Ronkainen, V. Soppi, A. Oksala, T. Koivisto, and M. Hippelainen Incomplete circle of willis and right axillary artery perfusion. Ann. Thorac. Surg., July 1, 2006; 82(1): 74 - 79. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
T. Kazui Editorial comment: Which is more appropriate as a cerebral protection method -- unilateral or bilateral perfusion? Eur. J. Cardiothorac. Surg., June 1, 2006; 29(6): 1039 - 1040. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M L Field, B Al-Alao, N Mediratta, and A Sosnowski Open and closed chest extrathoracic cannulation for cardiopulmonary bypass and extracorporeal life support: methods, indications, and outcomes. Postgrad. Med. J., May 1, 2006; 82(967): 323 - 331. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
C. Olsson and S. Thelin Antegrade Cerebral Perfusion With a Simplified Technique: Unilateral Versus Bilateral Perfusion. Ann. Thorac. Surg., March 1, 2006; 81(3): 868 - 874. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. A. Kucuker, M. A. Ozatik, A. Saritas, and O. Tasdemir Arch repair with unilateral antegrade cerebral perfusion Eur. J. Cardiothorac. Surg., April 1, 2005; 27(4): 638 - 643. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
U. Karadeniz, O. Erdemli, M. A. Ozatik, B. Yamak, A. Demirci, S. A. Kucuker, A. Saritas, and O. Tasdemir Assessment of Cerebral Blood Flow With Transcranial Doppler in Right Brachial Artery Perfusion Patients Ann. Thorac. Surg., January 1, 2005; 79(1): 139 - 146. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
M. A. Ozatik, S. A. Kucuker, H. Tuluce, A. Sartias, E. sener, S. Karakas, and O. Tasdemir Neurocognitive functions after aortic arch repair with right brachial artery perfusion Ann. Thorac. Surg., August 1, 2004; 78(2): 591 - 595. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
E. Kuralay, C. Bolcal, F. Cingoz, C. Gunay, V. Yildirim, S. Kilic, E. Ozal, U. Demirkilic, M. Arslan, and H. Tatar Cardiac reoperation by Carpentier bicaval femoral venous cannula: GATA experience Ann. Thorac. Surg., March 1, 2004; 77(3): 977 - 981. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. Akgul, M. A. Ozatik, S. A. Kucuker, I. Bahar, and O. Tasdemir Repair of the aortic arch with left unilateral selective cerebral perfusion Perfusion, January 1, 2004; 19(1): 77 - 79. [Abstract] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
S. A. Kucuker and O. Tasdemir Brachial artery cannulation J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg., December 1, 2003; 126(6): 2106 - 2107. [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
Y. Takahara, K. Mogi, M. Sakurai, and H. Nishida Total aortic arch grafting via median sternotomy using integrated antegrade cerebral perfusion Ann. Thorac. Surg., November 1, 2003; 76(5): 1485 - 1489. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
D. Fitzgerald, J. Resley, A. Speir, R. Munoz, and A. Hill Antegrade cerebral perfusion with hypothermic circulatory arrest: a case report Perfusion, September 1, 2003; 18(5): 303 - 306. [Abstract] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
| ANN THORAC SURG | ASIAN CARDIOVASC THORAC ANN | EUR J CARDIOTHORAC SURG |
| J THORAC CARDIOVASC SURG | ICVTS | ALL CTSNet JOURNALS |