Is there a safe limit to coronary sinus pressure during retrograde cardioplegia?

Although retrograde cardioplegia (RC) delivered via the coronary sinus (CS) is now used routinely, the pressure at which RC can be safely delivered is thought to be 50 to 60 mm Hg. Such practice is based on experiments performed on working, beating hearts with CS ligation and arterial inflow into both the coronary arteries and veins (Beck procedure). However, no data exist on arrested, vented hearts, as occurs clinically during RC. We studied the acute effect of 10 cc/kg of blood RC delivered into the CSs of 16 adult vented pig hearts, which were randomly assigned to four groups of four hearts each according to the CS pressure maintained during perfusion: 40, 80, 100, and 120 mm Hg. After RC, hearts were excised, cut in bread-loaf sections, examined grossly, and then fixed and stained. Sections of right ventricle, septum, and left ventricle were then examined by two blinded cardiac pathologists and two blinded surgeons and scored for the presence of extravascular hemorrhage. None of the 16 hearts tested showed any evidence of gross or microscopic hemorrhage; all hearts showed normal myocardial preservations and structure, including all hearts at 100 and 120 mm Hg CS perfusion pressure. We conclude that CS pressures up to 120 mm Hg cause no extravasation of blood into the myocardium in the vented, arrested heart. These results contradict studies on the working, beating heart, and suggest that high pressures in the CS are well tolerated during RC.