Advent of Heart Lung Machine and the innovations in CPB variegated the concept of Cardio-thoracic into Cardiac Surgery and Vascular Surgery. Many veteran surgeons continued to practise both the specialties either on academic interest or limited number of cardiac cases admitted in a general hospital or even some medical college hospitals having a few hundreds of cases per annum. Perfusionist also may take care of Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump in the post-operative period. Ultrafiltration continued after the termination of CPB was a turning point in clinical involvement.
Even though Offcab and interventional procedures of septal closures and even valve replacements took away the role of a perfusionist, receding to standby, various vascular surgical procedures demand require our service. Perfusionists gained insight in other fields such as Life support systems viz. Intra-aortic Balloon Pump, RV and LV Assist Devices, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, Isolated Organ Perfusion etc. Analysis of Blood Gases and Activated Clotting Time became a part of the perfusion protocol. Some perfusionists assisted the surgeon in various procedures like Doppler study etc. With the development of Heart Transplant for which donor heart has to be fetched from distant place, a new category as Transplant coordinator paves more insight for a perfusionist.
Aortic Arch Aneurysm, Assist Devices, Auto transfusion system, Bacillary Artery Aneurysm, Extra-corporeal Life Support, Hemoconcentrator, Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump, Isolated Organ Perfusion, Modified Ultrafiltration, Off cab, Retrograde Cerebral Perfusion, Selective Ante-grade Cerebral Perfusion, Ultrasonic Doppler Study
