In a cardiopulmonary bypass circuit, blood drains from the right side of the heart into the venous drainage reservoir. Blood leaving the reservoir next encounters which component of the heart–lung machine?
For a patient who is on full cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), systemic venous blood flows from the vena cavae into the venous drainage cannulas, and then flows into the CPB venous reservoir. Blood is drawn from the CPB venous reservoir into the CPB pump, where the pump is used to develop enough forward pressure to drive blood through the CPB oxygenator. Oxygenated blood leaving the CPB oxygenator then flows into the arterial cannula and from there, enters the patient’s systemic arterial circulation (Figure 1). The cardioplegia delivery pump is typically separate from the patient CPB circuit.
Anesthesiology Continuing Education (ACE) is a self-study CME program that covers established medical knowledge in the field of anesthesiology. ACE can help...