Good day, so I was curious about this after watching a heart transplant surgery. Normally speaking, the cardiovascular system can be considered as a closed loop system where fluids that leak out don’t introduce air bubbles into the blood stream. However, when transplanting an organ, say a heart, from a donor to a recipient, there are multiple instances where there might be a risk of introducing air bubbles to the blood stream either when being connected to an artificial blood pump or sewing the new organ in.
My question is, how is it that they manage to remove air bubbles from a patients blood stream after completing a heart transplant?
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I’m not a doctor, but I recently learned that a little air is okay. I actually had a “bubble test” done recently where they inject air into my veins with a needle, and use Ultrasound to watch the tiny bubbles go through my heart to check for any holes between the chambers allowing blood to flow the wrong way (I did indeed have a tiny defect, but small enough to be benign). So a few little bubbles are fine.
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