TY - JOUR AU - Wittwer, Thorsten AU - Choi, Yeong-Hoon AU - Neef, Klaus AU - Schink, Mareike AU - Sabashnikov, Anton AU - Wahlers, Thorsten PY - 2011 DA - 2011/10/19 TI - Off-pump or minimized on-pump coronary surgery - initial experience with Circulating Endothelial Cells (CEC) as a supersensitive marker of tissue damage JO - Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery SP - 142 VL - 6 IS - 1 AB - Off-pump-coronary-artery-bypass-grafting (OPCAB) and minimized-extracorporeal-circulation (Mini-HLM) have been proposed to avoid harmful effects of cardiopulmonary-bypass (CPB). Controversies exist whether OPCAB is still superior in perioperative outcome. Circulating endothelial cells (CEC) are sensitive markers of endothelial damage and are significantly elevated in conventional-CPB-procedures as compared to Mini-HLM-revascularisation. Therefore, CEC might be of specific value in evaluating effectiveness of Mini-HLM and OPCAB as currently applied less-invasive coronary procedures. SN - 1749-8090 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1749-8090-6-142 DO - 10.1186/1749-8090-6-142 ID - Wittwer2011 ER -