Techniques in Extracorporeal Circulation PDF

Preface

In May 1953 Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tensing became the first men to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. In that same month came John Gibbon's moment of triumph, with the first successful use of mechanical cardiopulmonary bypass in a human patient.

The seed had been sown and it subsequently fell to other pioneers to develop the science of extracorporeal circulation.

Leeds was at the forefront of this exciting development and, in 1957, Geoffrey Wooler used cardiopulmonary bypass to repair a mitral valve.He then went on to edit the first edition of Techniques in Extracorporeal Circulation, published in 1976. The change in authorship and content of the subsequent three editions reflects the evolution of the speciality over a generation of cardiac surgery.

Who, reading the first edition, would have predicted that the fourth edition, 27 years later,would contain chapters on robotic surgery and off-pump surgery? Will the combined threat of increasing angioplasty and off-pump surgery make the clinical perfusionist obsolete? Whatever happens there is no doubt that clinical perfusion will continue to evolve and develop. We believe that this fourth edition of Techniques in Extracorporeal Circulation deserves a place on the bookshelves of all healthcare professionals working in the cardiac surgical operating room. We suspect, in an era of electronic communication, that the bookshelf may well be the first to become obsolete.

Progress in surgery is often compared with mountaineering and exploration (and contributors to this book have themselves used the analogy). A lot has happened in both spheres in the past 50 years.With that in mind, we would like to follow in John Hunt's illustrious footsteps and, as he did in The Ascent of Everest, dedicate this book ... ‘To those who made it possible'.