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Review
. 2019 Jan;105(Suppl 1):s70-s73.
doi: 10.1136/heartjnl-2018-313060.

Non-coronary cardiac surgery and percutaneous cardiology procedures in aircrew

Norbert Guettler  1 , Edward D Nicol  2 , Joanna d'Arcy  2 , Rienk Rienks  3 , Dennis Bron  4 , Eddie D Davenport  5 , Olivier Manen  6 , Gary Gray  7 , Thomas Syburra  4   8
Affiliations
Review

Non-coronary cardiac surgery and percutaneous cardiology procedures in aircrew

Norbert Guettler et al. Heart. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

This manuscript focuses on the broad aviation medicine considerations that are required to optimally manage aircrew following non-coronary surgery or percutaneous cardiology interventions (both pilots and non-pilot aviation professionals). Aircrew may have pathology identified earlier than non-aircrew due to occupational cardiovascular screening and while aircrew should be treated using international guidelines, if several interventional approaches exist, surgeons/interventional cardiologists should consider which alternative is most appropriate for the aircrew role being undertaken; liaison with the aircrew medical examiner is strongly recommended prior to intervention to fully understand this. This is especially important in aircrew of high-performance aircraft or in aircrew who undertake aerobatics. Many postoperative aircrew can return to restricted flying duties, although aircrew should normally not return to flying for a minimum period of 6 months to allow for appropriate postoperative recuperation and assessment of cardiac function and electrophysiology.

Keywords: cardiac surgery; health care delivery.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

References

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