Clinical and experimental immunology
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Clin. Exp. Immunol. · Aug 1984
Association of anti-heart antibodies and circulating immune complexes in the post-pericardiotomy syndrome.
The post-pericardiotomy syndrome (PPS) is a common complication of cardiac surgery. In order to better understand the pathogenesis of this complication we undertook a prospective, triple blind study of consecutive long term survivors of cardiac surgery. We followed 82 patients and determined anti-heart antibodies (AHA), circulating immune complexes (CIC) and anti-viral antibodies (AVA) on sera pre-operatively and serially post-operatively. ⋯ Development of post-operative AHA and increased CIC were also more frequently found. We found a good correlation between PPS, positive AHA and increased CIC. No correlation was found between PPS and virus serology.