A Review of Alkaline Phosphatase in Preventing Systemic Inflammation after Cardiac Surgery

Cardiothoracic surgery is a rapidly evolving specialty of medicine concerned with the management of multiple pathologies of organs within the thoracic cavity. At least two million cardiac surgeries are performed globally per annum, and this number continues to rise With an aging population, patients undergoing surgery are more likely to be older and possess more comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension Patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) experience systemic inflammation, resulting in post-operative complications and an increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Hence, therapeutic measures which limit the inflammatory response to cardiac surgery will improve surgical outcomes. This article will describe the inflammatory response which occurs following cardiac surgery performed on CPB and will review the use of alkaline phosphatase as a novel therapeutic measure to attenuate such.