Introduction: Extracorporeal circulation (EC) is very important in cardiac surgery but causes significant damage to the blood, including hemolysis.
Objective: To quantify the rate of hemolysis at different times during EC in elective coronary artery bypass grafting.
Methods: We measured rates of hemolysis of 22 patients at 6 different times during myocardial revascularization during EC: T0 - before the start of EC, T1 - five minutes after of the EC initiation, T2 - 30 minutes of EC, T3 - immediately before the aortic unclamping, T4 - immediately before passage of the residual volume to the patient and T5 - five minutes after the passage of the residual volume to the patient. Rates of hemolysis were calculated between the intervals of time: T0-T1; T1-T2; T2-T3; T3-T4 and T4-T5.
Results: The first 5 minutes after the EC showed the highest rate of hemolysis (P = 0.0003) compared to the others calculated rates, representing 29% of the total haemolysis until T4 (Immediately before passage of the residual volume to the patient).
Conclusion: There were no significant changes in the rate of hemolysis during the suction in the aortic root (P> 0.38), nor with the procedure used for the passage of the residual volume of blood in the circuit to the patient.