Liberal Use of Delayed Sternal Closure in Children Is Not Associated With Increased Morbidity

Delayed sternal closure (DSC) is often employed to optimize hemodynamics following pediatric cardiac surgery. Prior reports have suggested that DSC may be associated with increased morbidity. We sought to analyze the impact of a liberal policy of DSC on surgical outcomes at our center.We retrospectively evaluated the clinical course of 1,000 consecutive patients between July 2005 and June 2015 whose sternum was electively left open following...