The ball electrode for electrically induced ventricular fibrillation during cardiac surgery was deviced.
Ventricular fibrillation was easily induced with the ball electrode attached to left ventricular epicardium in the pericardial cavity.
In this way, fifty-eight patients during moderately hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass, and six patients under normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass by means of the technique, so called, transapical aortic infusion, were operated without showing myocardial damage.
After defibrillation by electrically induced direct current shock, normal cardiac function was usually resumed without massage.
Advantages of deliberatelly induced ventricular fibrillation in open heart surgery during normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass are that it maintains a quiet operative field preventing air emboli, and that heart block caused by surgical repair can be found soon after electrical shock.
