Study Limitations
There are a number of limitations to the present study. First, the relatively low patient number makes it difficult to determine a statistically significant difference for our primary and secondary outcomes. The single-surgeon research design may also lead to patient selection biases, although we endeavored to minimize this since the surgeon was not permitted to select the cardioplegia strategy used for each patient. Another limitation is that cardiac functions were not evaluated using postoperativecardiac output monitoring and echocardiograms. The short follow-up timerepresents furtherlimitation in thisand all presently available studies, and is a subject requiring further consideration in the future.