Abstract:

Carnitine is a necessary co-factor for the metabolism of fatty acids and is one of the primary sources of ATP in normal aerobic heart. During myocardial ischemia, the fatty acid metabolism is deteriorated and the tissue carnitin levels are reduced. Since the heart cannot synthesize carnitine, the presence of carnitine during the reperfusion plays an important role for the myocardial function. In this study, patients with coronary artery bypass surgery are intended to investigate the effect of cardioplasty enriched with carnitine on the myocard and the effectiveness of protecting the myocard from post-skemic reperfusion damage. The study was conducted by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hacettepe in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, between April 2005 and June 2005, with 20 patients applied for elective coronary by-pass surgery. Patients were divided into two groups. It included 10 people, including Group I (Control Group) and Group II (Working Group). In Group I, standard cold blood cardiopoly and in Group II, carnitin-containing blood cardiopoly were used. Patients were tested in preoperative and postoperative periods. Heart output (CO) increased significantly in the postoperative 1 hour in the work group (control group; 4.94 ± 0.09 L/min and work group; 5.32 ± 0.43 L/min; p

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