Elective deep hypothermia with total circulatory arrest: changes in plasma creatine kinase BB, blood glucose, and clinical variables.

Serial measurements of a marker of brain ischemia, creatine kinase isoenzyme BB, were performed in arterial and internal jugular venous blood from 20 infants younger than 1 year of age before and during the first 20 hours after deep hypothermic total circulatory arrest procedures. A two-site monoclonal method was used, and the results were analyzed in relation to age, size, type of cardiac lesion, hemoglobin level, blood glucose level, pH, and duration of the total circulatory arrest. The creatine kinase BB concentrations increased after the arrest, more so in venous than in arterial blood, from 3.2 +/- 0.5 ng/ml to 17.5 +/- 4.5 in arterial blood and from 3.5 +/- 0.5 ng/ml to 18.1 +/- 5.8 in venous blood. Arterial-venous concentration differences correlated with venous concentrations (r = 0.92, p less than 0.01). The duration of the arrest correlated with creatine kinase BB concentrations during reperfusion with correlation coefficients between 0.50 to 0.90 depending of what sequence of the 20-hour sampling period was analyzed. The best correlation was obtained during the first 4 hours of reperfusion. Age, size of the child, and preoperative cyanosis correlated with postoperative creatine kinase BB but were less important than the arrest time, blood glucose level (r = 0.62, p less than 0.01), pH (r = -0.78, p less than 0.01), and hemoglobin level (r = 0.76, p less than 0.01) during reperfusion. It is suggested that a different control of blood glucose level and pH during reperfusion may be of importance to reduce biochemical signs of cerebral dysfunction after deep hypothermic total circulatory arrest procedures.