Post-Transplant Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Severe Primary Graft Dysfunction to Support the Use of Marginal Donor Hearts

Yasuhiro Shudo, Aiman Alassar, Hanjay Wang, Bharathi Lingala, Hao He, Yuanjia Zhu, William Hiesinger, John W. MacArthur, Jack H. Boyd, Anson M. Lee, Maria Currie, Y. Joseph Woo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Severe primary graft dysfunction (PGD) is the leading cause of early postoperative mortality following orthotopic heart transplantation (OHT). Veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) has been used as salvage therapy. This study aimed to evaluate the outcomes in adult OHT recipients who underwent VA-ECMO for severe PGD. We retrospectively reviewed 899 adult (≥18 years) patients who underwent primary OHT at our institution between 1997 and 2017. Recipients treated with VA-ECMO (19, 2.1%) exhibited a higher incidence of previous cardiac surgery (p =.0220), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (p =.0352), and treatment with a calcium channel blocker (p =.0018) and amiodarone (p =.0148). Cardiopulmonary bypass (p =.0410) and aortic cross-clamp times (p =.0477) were longer in the VA-ECMO cohort and they were more likely to have received postoperative transfusion (p =.0013); intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP, p <.0001), and reoperation for bleeding or tamponade (p <.0001). The 30-day, 1-year, and overall survival after transplantation of non-ECMO patients were 95.9, 88.8, and 67.4%, respectively, compared to 73.7, 57.9, and 47.4%, respectively in the ECMO cohort. Fourteen (73.7%) of the ECMO patients were weaned after a median of 7 days following OHT (range: 1–12 days). Following OHT, VA-ECMO may be a useful salvage therapy for severe PGD and can potentially support the usage of marginal donor hearts.

Original languageEnglish
Article number10176
JournalTransplant International
Volume35
DOIs
StatePublished - 10 Mar 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • ECMO
  • heart transplantation
  • marginal donor heart
  • outcomes
  • primary graft dysfunction

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Post-Transplant Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Severe Primary Graft Dysfunction to Support the Use of Marginal Donor Hearts'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this