Leukocyte filtration in cardiac surgery: a review

Leukocyte filtration has evolved as an important technique in cardiac surge ry with cardiopulmonary bypass to prevent pathogenic effector functions med iated by activated leukocytes. The underlying mechanisms that result in an improvement of laboratory variables as well as clinical outcome are not res olved yet. Moreover, the optimum strategy for the use of current filtration technology has not been systematically evaluated. This paper, therefore, r eviews how activated leukocytes may lead to tissue damage, summarizes the k nown effects of leukocyte filtration on clinical outcome and laboratory par ameters, and deals with current experimental and clinical efforts to furthe r limit the pathogenic effects of leukocytes in cardiac surgery,