BACKGROUND: The development of low-invasive cardiosurgical techniques hascontributed to an increase of the number of revascularization procedures performed on beating heart.The report presents the changes observed intraoperatively in thermographic images of the heart obtainedduring surgical revascularization performed without extracorporeal circulation.
MATERIAL AND METHODS:In two patients with coronary heart disease, subjected to coronary artery bypass grafting performed withoutextracorporeal circulation, the images acquired over the operation area were recorded intraoperativelyusing a thermovision camera (Agema Thermovision SW/TE 900 system).
RESULTS: On the basis of thermographicimages, the area of lowered temperature corresponding to the region of myocardium with impaired bloodflow supplied by the descending anterior coronary artery branch was determined. A rapid temperature increaseto the baseline values was observed soon after removing the ligatures from the descending anterior coronaryartery and left internal mammary artery used as a bypass.
CONCLUSIONS: Recording thermographic heart imagesallows to observe restricted areas of perfusion disturbances, which take place during procedures performedon beating heart.

Keywords: coronary artery bypass grafting without extracorporeal circulation, Thermography