{"id":3165,"date":"2010-10-17T12:43:33","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T17:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2025-05-09T10:49:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:49:40","slug":"ice-cardioplegia-open-heart-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2010\/10\/17\/ice-cardioplegia-open-heart-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Will The Surgeon &#8216;Ice&#8217; My Heart During Surgery?&#8221; Asks Alma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received an interesting question from Alma about a critical step during heart valve repair and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-valve-replacement.php\">heart valve replacement surgeries<\/a>. Alma writes, &#8220;Adam &#8211; I&#8217;m going in for surgery next week. Thanks to your book, my anxiety has greatly decreased. I&#8217;m curious&#8230;\u00a0I know my heart is going to be cooled and stopped during surgery. But, will my surgeon actually put ice on my bare heart? Alma&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coincidentally, I just took the picture below while observing a heart valve surgery last week. As you can see, the answer to Alma&#8217;s question is typically&#8230; Yes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"\/Images\/ice-heart-surgery.jpg\" alt=\"Ice Chips On Heart During Cardiac Surgery\" width=\"300\" height=\"291\" \/><br \/>\nIce Chips On Heart During Cooling Process<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So you know, the heart is cooled to minimize its metabolic requirements and protect the heart muscle. In addition, a <em>cardioplegia<\/em> solution (which is a fluid with high concentrations of potassium and magnesium) is introduced to stop the heart completely.<\/p>\n<p>It only takes about 30 seconds for the heart rate to drop to zero. I&#8217;ll never forget seeing the heart rate monitor of this patient plummet from 114 to 0 so quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, it&#8217;s not <em>just<\/em> the heart that is cooled during open heart surgery, the patient&#8217;s entire body is cooled via internal and external techniques. (Side Note: Please make sure to bring a jacket to the operating room if you ever observe a procedure. The operating rooms are quite cold!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/restart-heart.jpg\" alt=\"Defibrillator Use During Cardiac Surgery To Restart Heart\" width=\"427\" height=\"285\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Once the surgeon has completed the heart valve repair or heart valve replacement, the body is warmed and, if needed, the heart is shocked back into rhythm using a defibrillator.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/stop\/\">Ask Dr. Chikwe: Stopping The Heart During Cardiac Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/restart\/\">Restarting The Heart After Cardiac Surgery with Dr. Gerdisch<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope that helps Alma (and perhaps you) learn a little more about how the heart is cooled during open heart surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40901,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/40901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}