With the advancement and development of computer technology, the medical decision-making system based on artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely applied in clinical practice. In the perioperative period of cardiovascular surgery, AI can be applied to preoperative diagnosis, intraoperative, and postoperative risk management. This article introduces the application and development of AI during the perioperative period of cardiovascular surgery, including preoperative auxiliary diagnosis, intraoperative risk management, postoperative management, and full process auxiliary decision-making management. At the same time, it explores the challenges and limitations of the application of AI and looks forward to the future development direction.
In the late-breaking trials session of the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2021, which took place in November 2021, six clinical trials in cardiac surgery published their primary results. This review will look into three of them including the management of patients with moderate or less-than-moderate tricuspid regurgitation at the time of surgery for degenerative mitral regurgitation, timing of ticagrelor cessation before coronary artery bypass grafting, and long-term outcomes of ticagrelor-based antiplatelet therapy for secondary prevention of coronary artery bypass grafting.
Facing the increasing cardiovascular disease burden and prevailing population risk factors, the cardiovascular surgery in China was also encountering challenges including imbalances in discipline development, significant divergencies in healthcare quality, lacking of clinical guidelines and domestic critical evidence. The concept of quality control and improvement has been practiced and tested in many disease specialties. Quality improvement programs are urgently needed in China to promote the universal cardiovascular surgery healthcare quality.
The incidence of cardiovascular disease remains high, and surgery is an important measure for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. However, cardiovascular surgery is complicated and difficult, and it is one of the departments with the highest rate of allogeneic blood transfusion. Allogeneic blood transfusion significantly increases the complications and mortality of patients, while autologous blood transfusion can effectively reduce allogeneic blood transfusion and adverse reactions. Autologous plateletpheresis technology is a popular autotransfusion method in recent years. This article reviews the autologous plateletpheresis technology and its clinical application in cardiovascular surgery.
3D printing technology has a promising prospect of medical use and clinical value, and may play an important role in the field of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, such as preoperative diagnosis, surgical planning, surgical approach alternatives and organ replacement. This review focuses on the development of 3D printing technology in recent years and its use and prospect in the field of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery including surgical teaching and simulation, personalized prosthesis implantation, and artificial organ transplantation.
Working Group on Extracorporeal Life Support, National Center for Cardiovascular Quality Improvement developed guidelines on patient blood management for adult cardiovascular surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass, aiming to standardize patient blood management in adult cardiovascular surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass, reduce blood resource consumption, and improve patients outcomes. Forty-eight domestic experts participated in the development of the guidelines. Based on prior investigation and the PICO (patient, intervention, control, outcome) principles, thirteen clinical questions from four aspects were selected, including priming and fluid management during cardiopulmonary bypass, anticoagulation and monitoring during cardiopulmonary bypass, peri-cardiopulmonary bypass blood product infusion, and autologous blood infusion. Systemic reviews to the thirteen questions were performed through literature search. Recommendations were drafted using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) system. After five rounds of experts discussions between 2023 and 2024, 19 recommendations were finally formed.
Committee of Minimally Invasive Cardiovascular Surgery (CMICS) annually investigates the minimally invasive cardiovascular surgery performed by departments of cardiovascular surgery of all hospitals in China of last year, and makes classification and summary according to the operation amount of minimally invasive surgery, regional and hospital distribution, and publishes it on the theme report of China Minimally Invasive Cardiovascular Surgery Conference (CMC). In 2021, CMICS published the 2018-2019 annual data of Chinese cardiovascular surgery in the form of a white paper for the first time in the Chinese Journal of Clinical Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, which attracted great attention from peers. In this statistical report, CMICS will focus on the volume of minimally invasive cardiovascular surgery, regional and hospital distribution in China (excluding Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region, and Taiwan Province) in the 2020—2021 for your reference.
This consensus focuses on the clinical application of domestic ultra-high-definition (UHD) medical endoscopes in cardiovascular surgery, addressing their clinical value, key technical aspects, and strategies for broader implementation. It traces the evolution of domestic endoscopic platforms from high-resolution imaging toward integrated advanced functionalities such as fluorescence imaging, three-dimensional visualization, and intelligent assistance. The document outlines standardized procedural steps and perioperative management pathways for minimally invasive endoscopic cardiovascular surgery and summarizes specific application scenarios and technical considerations in congenital heart disease, valvular disorders, coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, and cardiac tumors. Furthermore, recommendations are provided regarding professional training, multicenter collaboration, the establishment of clinical evaluation systems, and coordinated policy-industry support to promote standardized adoption and high-quality dissemination of domestic medical devices. Based on available evidence and expert agreement, 16 consensus statements are presented, aiming to offer authoritative and actionable guidance for clinical practice.
This article systematically analyzes the cardiovascular surgery data presented in the "Annual Report on Cardiovascular Health and Diseases in China" over the past two decades, identifying three core characteristics that highlight its role in advancing the field. Firstly, the report has progressively upgraded its data sources, transitioning from early-stage society-based questionnaires to the comprehensive and detailed national hospital quality monitoring system (HQMS). This shift has enabled a more precise depiction of surgical volumes, evolving treatment modalities (such as the changing dynamics between transcatheter aortic valve replacement and surgical aortic valve replacement), and clinical outcomes. Secondly, the report focuses on key quality control indicators. By analyzing metrics for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), including internal mammary artery utilization, perioperative medication standards, and the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)-to-CABG ratio, it has identified areas for improvement and guided quality enhancement by tracking the development of advanced therapies for end-stage heart failure, such as heart transplantation and left ventricular assist devices. Finally, the report has consistently promoted epidemiological research, filling critical data gaps on major diseases. This has clarified the etiological shift in valvular heart disease from rheumatic to degenerative causes and revealed the unique epidemiological features and therapeutic challenges of critical conditions like aortic dissection in the Chinese population. Through this analysis, the article aims to elucidate how the report, by virtue of its data evolution and content strategy, has not only objectively chronicled the specialty's history but has also served as a strategic guide for its progress and quality improvement.
In March 2026, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA) and other professional societies released the "Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia". Building on the 2018 "Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol", the new guideline incorporates recent evidence from large-scale randomized cardiovascular outcome trials and contemporary risk-prediction studies. It broadens the focus of lipid management from cholesterol-centered treatment to a comprehensive, life-course management of atherogenic lipoprotein risk. For patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery, the guideline is pertinent not only for perioperative risk stratification and postoperative secondary prevention, but also offers a more sophisticated framework for long-term comprehensive management. In this article, combined with clinical guidelines and key evidence-based evidence, we interpret the major updates of the 2026 edition of the guideline and implications for cardiovascular surgical practice, with the aim of providing a reference for perioperative and long-term blood lipid management for cardiovascular surgery patients.