Immunological alterations following open heart surgery.

Immunological changes in thirty patients undergoing various cardiac surgical procedures (twenty patients undergoing open heart surgery with either the bubble or the membrane oxygenator and ten patients undergoing closed surgical procedures) were studied. There was an activation of suppressor T cells and secretion of lymphokines in patients undergoing open heart surgery with activation of the classical complement pathway. The immunological alterations were similar in all patients irrespective of the type of oxygenator used.