By Establishing Extracorporeal Circulation Treatment Technology Favourable for Domestic Use

In the field of cardiovascular surgery, the extracorporeal circulation technology is of such great importance that the development of extracorporeal circulatory technology is just the development of cardiac surgery.

O Kyong Sok, head of the Cardiovascular Surgery Department of the Pyongyang University of Medical Sciences Hospital, worked as an extracorporeal circulation surgeon in the newly-established department over two decades ago.

Since then, he has devoted himself to the research of extracorporeal circulation technology. The core of the project was to find a way to replace various medical supplies, appliances and medicines needed for extracorporeal circulation with domestic ones and to increase extracorporeal circulation time so as to fully provide the time for carrying out different cardiac operations. After conducting strenuous research, he established a method of substituting a foreign-made blood protecting material and reagent used for extracorporeal circulation with domestic ones and rationally revised extracorporeal circulation circuit to lay a material and technical foundation for maximizing the time of circulation.

Meanwhile, he made a contribution to recovering health to many patients with tetralogy of Fallo, valvular heart disease and others.