HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): Thierry Carrel Lars Englberger Permission Requests Google Scholar Articles by Carrel, T. Articles by Englberger, L. PubMed Articles by Carrel, T. Articles by Englberger, L.

Editorial comment

Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital of Berne, Berne, Switzerland

^_* Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 31 632 23 75; fax: +41 31 632 44 43. (Email: thierry.carrel@insel.ch).

Key Words: Aprotinin • Cardiac surgery • Mortality • Late survival

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Stamou and colleagues present another critical article about adverse outcome following administration of aprotinin in adult cardiac surgery [1]. In this retrospective study, haemostatic effects of aprotinin were confirmed but the authors found an increased risk for in-hospital cardiac arrest. Another intriguing finding was found, namely that the risk of late cardiac death was higher in patients who received aprotinin than after aminocaproic acid (EACA). Unfortunately, neither the cause of early mortality nor the problem of cardiac-related attrition (graft occlusion, perioperative myocardial infarction, malignant arrhythmias or others) were analysed or specified.

Because of the retrospective character of the study, several limitations and bias have to be considered: the use of aprotinin or EACA was left at the discretion of the surgeons. The patients who . . . [Full Text of this Article]