Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This study evaluated the effectiveness of an atrial septal defect ASD with veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation vvECMO as a bridge to transplantation.
After recovery, animals were placed on ECMO, and the PA was constricted to generate a two-fold rise in right ventricular systolic pressure. Sheep were then maintained for 60 hours on ECMO, and data were collected hourly.
Five sheep survived 60 hours. One sheep died due to a circuit clot extending into the RV, and another died presumably due to an arrhythmia. Cardiac output CO was 6. Average arterial oxygen saturation and pCO 2 over the experiment were In conclusion, an ASD combined with vvECMO maintains normal systemic hemodynamics and arterial blood gases during a long-term increase in right ventricular afterload.
Keywords: right ventricular failure, pulmonary failure, ECLS, lung transplant, septostomy. Lung disease is the cause of one in seven deaths in the United States, totaling , Americans each year [ 1 ]. Currently, the only treatment option for chronic irreversible pulmonary failure is lung transplantation. After transplantation, right ventricular strain normally decreases, and remodeling processes reestablish normal right ventricular physiology spontaneously [ 3 ].
Unfortunately, the demand for donor lungs has steadily outgrown the supply. This mismatch between the demand and available donor organs leads to the fact that approximately one fourth of patients on the lung transplant waiting list die per year in the US [ 4 ]. Unlike renal or cardiac replacement therapy, the current methods for supporting patients with end stage lung disease are not sufficiently refined to act as a long-term bridge to transplantation.
