2.1 Patients and ethics
From 55 patients, a biopsy of the parietal pericardium (2x2 cm) was
taken at the initiation of elective cardiothoracic surgery (coronary
artery bypass grafting and/or cardiac valve replacement surgery) and
stored in sterile physiological salt solution (PSS) at 4
°C as previously
described(Leurgans et al., 2016). Informed written consent was obtained
from all patients prior to surgery. The study was approved by the
Regional Committees of Health Research Ethics for Southern Denmark
(S-20140202) and experiments were conducted according to the principles
expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical
Association(World Medical, 2013). Characteristics of the patients are
summarized in Table 1.