Abstract
The authors have proved that "Assisted Circulation", which provides mechanical sup-port to failed cardiopulmonary function by the use of a pump-oxygenator or a pump alone, is highly effective for medically incurable acute or chronic cardiac failure. A number of clinical application of assisted circulation have been successfully made by the authors. As a rule, the organ subjected to any surgical intervention should be kept in a rest post-operatively and it is desirable that the function-al load to the organ should be lightened as much as possible. However, so far as cardiac surgery is concerned, this rule can not be applied to a postoperative patient and none of any powerful measures has seemingly been taken. Thus, it any powerful measures for supporting cardiopulmonary function is established, it must be greatly beneficial not only to a patient in cardiac surgery, but also to a poor risk patient with myocardial damage in general surgery, since it must provide expansion of surgical indication, increase of successful cases and improvement of prognosis. The author has made attempts to apply a type of assisted circulation, veno-arterial pumping, to a postoperative patient. Veno-arterial pumping is a method to assist a failed heart by sucking a part of venous blood from a vena cava or the right atrium and resending the blood into the aorta without oxygenation, using a pump alone. Veno-arterial pumping applied to a postoperative patient may necessarily be carried out for many hours and has a number of problems concerning the apparatus, perfusion technique, monitoring the patient, and, especially its effect on the organs in the lower half of the body which is perfused with venous blood. Therefore, the author has experimentally investigated the effect of prolonged veno-arterial pumping on the abdominal organs such as the liver, spleen, pancreas, small intestine and greater omentum.
