Abstract

Redo cardiac surgeries are often considered a different genre because of the technical challenges they pose for the surgeons and the intraoperative hemodynamic and bleeding challenges they impose on the anaesthesiologists. Time has seen an increase in redo cardiac surgery candidates presenting to centres due to various reasons including increase in lifespan, increase in comorbidities, more primary patients with bioprosthetic valves in situ etc. Better results have also been visible throughout the years owing to high volume in these centres and inturn, greater experience in handling these cases. In addition, the risk associated with resternotomy is a seperate challenge which can be tackled by preoperative imaging and proper surgical planning accordingly. The focus of this study was to observe the occurrence of intraoperative complications and to formulate steps to tackle and prevent these challenges in a systematic manner.20 consecutive redo cardiac surgeries done in two years duration by the same surgical team were opted for this purpose. The reason for reoperation, grade of cardiac injuries, intraoperative adverse events and perioperative morbidity and mortality were studied in these cases and the challenges were tackled as per institutional protocols in place. To conclude, this study helped in reaffirming the statistical trend showing that redo cardiac surgeries are becoming safer with more experience. This is also helped by the fact that a stepwise strategy can help in advanced anticipation of life threatening events and preventing or tackling them without ado.

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