Analogy of Del Nido and conventional cardioplegia in patients undergoing isolated mitral valve replacement surgery: A single-center retrospective study

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the postoperative outcomes after utilizing the Del Nido cardioplegia as compared to conventional cardioplegia, in patients undergoing isolated mitral valve replacement surgery. Methods: This was a single-center retrospective study conducted with the data from 80 patients with mitral valve disease, who underwent cardiopulmonary bypass. The outcome assessments of the Del Nido group (n = 40) was compared with that of the non-Del Nido group (n = 40). Various time factors were analyzed as end points that included cardiopulmonary bypass time aortic cross clamp time, duration of mechanical ventilation, need for postoperative inotropic support, volume of packed red blood cells (RBCs) transfusion, length of ICU and hospital stay, among others. Results: The current study showed that the mean cardiopulmonary bypass time and aortic cross-clamp time were significantly shorter in the Del Nido group when compared to the non-Del Nido group (P < 0.05). The mean number of packed red blood cell pints administered in the Del Nido group was fewer than the non-Del Nido group (P < 0.05). No significant differences found in other outcome measures. Conclusion: The use of the Del Nido cardioplegia technique did significantly reduce the aortic cross-clamping time and cardio-pulmonary bypass time. The present study did also show a marked reduction in the amount of packed RBCs transfusion in the Del Nido group as compared to non-Del Nido conventional cardioplegia. Rigorous, adequately scrutinized randomized control trials are required to reiterate these findings in-order to enable us to extrapolate their benefits to a larger population.