Ventricular Assist Device Application With the Intermediate Use of a Membrane Oxygenator as a Bridge to Pediatric Heart Transplantation

Garcia-Guereta, Luis; Cabo, Javier; de la Oliva, Pedro; Villar, Miguel Angel; Bronte, Lucia Deiros; Goldman, Luis; Hübler, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.healun.2009.04.018

« Previous Next »The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation
Volume 28, Issue 7 , Pages 740-742, July 2009

Ventricular Assist Device Application With the Intermediate Use of a Membrane Oxygenator as a Bridge to Pediatric Heart Transplantation

Luis Garcia-Guereta, MD, PhD
- Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
- Reprint requests: Luis Garcia-Guereta, MD, PhD, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Pediatric Cardiology, Castellana 261, 28046 Madrid, Spain. Telephone: 003-491-320-9920. Fax: 003-491-727-7040
Javier Cabo, MD, PhD
- Department of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
Pedro de la Oliva, MD, PhD
- Department of Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
Miguel Angel Villar, RN
- Department of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
Lucia Deiros Bronte, MD
- Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
Luis Goldman, MD
- Department of Pediatric Anesthesia, Hospital Universitario La Paz, Madrid, Spain
Michael Hübler, MD
- Department of Cardiac Surgery, Deutsches Herzzentrum, Berlin, Germany

Received 24 December 2008; received in revised form 16 March 2009; accepted 7 April 2009.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and ventricular assist devices are currently used for the treatment of severe heart failure as a bridge to transplantation. The use of ventricular assist devices is limited by respiratory failure. We report a patient with severe heart failure and respiratory failure who was successfully bridged to transplantation, initially with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and afterwards with an EXCOR biventricular assist device (Berlin Heart AG, Berlin, Germany) and a membrane oxygenator (Jostra Quadrox D, Maquet Cardiopulmonary, AG Hirrlingen, Germany) intercalated in the outflow cannula of the left pump.