Myocardial protection in cardiac surgery is directed at the prevention of myocardial damage during a time period of deliberate cardiac arrest to conduct a surgical procedure. Almost 5 decades ago, cardioplegic solutions were developed and have since found daily use in operating rooms worldwide. The initial experimental work was conducted in healthy animals and human studies mostly compared individual solutions but not different pathological conditions, such as hibernation. Hibernation has become a common clinical (and experimentally reproducible) condition in today’s patients where reduced contractile function is accompanied by reduced coronary flow and the absence of scar formation. To date, it is not clear whether hibernation represents a state of chronic ischemia or whether a new flow and function match is established that allows tissue survival under normoxic conditions. In addition, the value of ischemic biomarker release kinetics in the surgical setting are still unclear. Using a pig model, I want to 1.) assess the ability of classic cardioplegia to protect hibernating myocardium, 2.) determine whether hibernating myocardium may reflect a state of chronic ischemia and 3.) assess the release kinetics of troponin and creatine kinase after cardiac surgery. The results are likely to have a direct impact on clinical practice.