A transthoracic Doppler echocardiography study of C-reactive protein and coronary microcirculation in children after open heart surgery.
Background Systemic inflammation has been suggested to underlie in part the elevated risk of arrhythmias and myocardial dysfunction during the first weeks after cardiac surgery. Recent transthoracic Doppler studies from our centre indicated increased basal coronary arterial flow in children 5 days after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. In these children, we investigated whether the inflammatory med