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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2000;17:608-613
© 2000 Elsevier Science NL
a Department of Cardiothoracic, University of Regensburg, Surgery, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93042 Regensburg, Germany
b Department of Internal Medicine, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-941-944-9801; fax: +49-941-944-9802
e-mail: andreas.liebold{at}klinik.uni-regensburg.de
| Abstract |
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Key Words: Acute respiratory distress syndrome Pulmonary failure Extracorporeal lung assist Pumpless
| 1. Introduction |
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To reduce the drawbacks of mechanical blood damage during prolonged ECLA, a new technique has been developed by which the driving force for the extracorporeal circuit was not a pump but the patient's arteriovenous (AV) pressure gradient. By using a special designed low-resistance MO an artificial AV shunt was established, which provided enough flow within the MO to be as effective as a pump driven system. The aim of our study was to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of pumpless extracorporeal lung assist (pECLA) in a group of patients with ARDS.
| 2. Materials and methods |
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Before insertion of the arterial and venous cannulae the internal diameter of the common femoral artery and vein were estimated by ultrasound. Especially arteriosclerotic plaque formation at the insertion site could be detected. The external diameter of the cannula was chosen approximately 1.01.5 mm smaller than the minimal internal diameter of the vessel. We used heparin coated cannulae (BP-FCSA (Jostra Inc., Hirrlingen, Germany), CB 96535 (Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN)) sized from 1721 F for arterial and 1921 F for venous cannulation. The cannulae were inserted using Seldinger's technique with the help of several dilatators in increasing diameter. Usually the arterial cannula was placed first for having the opportunity to change to the other leg if difficulties occur (i.e. inability to advance the cannula due to arteriosclerosis or kinking). The venous cannula was then inserted into the opposite leg. After insertion the cannulae were clamped and connected to the prefilled tubing system containing the MO (Quadrox Spezial, Jostra Inc., Hirrlingen, Germany).
This MO prototype is based on the QuadroxTM heparin-coated hollow fibre technology with reduced inner surface area (1.3 m2) and optimized blood flow characteristics. By reducition of the blood flow resistance the MO produces a pressure gradient of approximately 15 mmHg between in- and outflow providing a trans MO flow up to 4 l/min. The technical settings of the oxygenator allowed a minimal O2 transfer of 45 ml /l and a minimal CO2 transfer of 38 ml/l. The system was primed with 20% human albumin (priming volume approximately 270 ml). As the total extracorporeal lenght (tip-to-tip) did not exceed 120130 cm, no heat exchanger was needed. After removal of the clamps an oxygen supply line was connected to the inflow site of the MO with an oxygen flow of 1012 l/min. A continuous heparin infusion was connected to the arterial cannula to keep the activated clotting time at a level of 130150 s. A bidirectional ultrasound sensor (Transonic Systems Inc., NY) was placed at the outflow line to determine the extracorporeal flow (FMO). A schematic overview of the pECLA components is given in Fig. 1.
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Values in the text are given as mean±one standard deviation (SD). The values of paO2, paCO2, FiO2, and oxygenation index (paO2/FiO2) before and throughout pECLA were compared using a paired t-test for parametric variables. P-values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
| 3. Results |
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| 4. Discussion |
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As in the pump-driven technology, the method is based on the premise that lung rest facilitates alveolar repair and helps to avoid baro- or volutrauma of high pressure ventilation. The evolution in membrane and oxygenator technology provides us with low-resistance membrane gas exchangers that allow a significant flow even when the circuit is not driven by a pump. In our setting, the mean extracorporeal flow was 2.6 l/min which represented approximately 25% of the patients mean cardiac output. In our individual experiences the extracorporeal flow exceeded 4 l/min, which reaches the range of pump-driven systems. By establishing appropriate hemodynamic inclusion criteria a rather hyperdynamic group of patients was selected. The driving pressure gradient between MAP and CVP occasionally was enhanced by norepinephrine infusion. It was our experience that immediately after pECLA onset simultaneous with the better oxygenation the catecholamine supply could be reduced or even withdrawn in most patients. Although the system does not provide active assistance to patients suffering from cardiac failure (and, therefore, is contraindicated in such patients) it may be helpful to a certain extent in patients with mild degrees of cardiac dysfunction and catecholamine resistance.
The blood gas exchange capacity of pECLA was generally found to be sufficient. The key effect of both ECLA techniques, pump-driven or pumpless, is a nearly 100% oxygen saturation of the blood gas passing the oxygenator. Thus, the flow through the MO is one of the critical parameters for the whole body oxygenation. As with pump-driven ECLA maximum flow rates of 4 to 6 l/min can be achieved, physically pECLA per se will never be equal effective. Therefore, pECLA should be considered only as a supportive therapy but could not totally replace ventilator therapy.
The incidence of both technical and patient-related complications of ECLA is much more common in adults than in neonates [4,17]. Gille et al. reported on 11 technical complications in 65 patients including three deaths [18]. In pump-driven ECLA the most common technical complication is oxygenator failure (19%) followed by cannula problems (12%), tubing rupture (5%), pump malfunction (3%), and heat exchanger malfunction (1%) [4]. The absence of fatal technical complications was one of the important findings of this study. Since our system worked without pump and heat exchanger technical problems were restricted to oxygenator failure (20%) and cannula problems (25%). Thrombus formation within the oxygenator is one of the commonest problems in extracorporeal oxygenation. This phenomenon is well known amongst perfusionists in the setting of cardiopulmonary bypass [19]. Research hypothesizes that it is the activation of platelets that subsequently may cause fibrin deposition. However, the primary etiology of this phenomenon remains unknown. The relatively high incidence of thrombus formation within the MO or the venous cannula may be due to the low heparin dosage which was chosen by us. On the other hand, we did not observe any bleeding complication nor clinically evident embolisms due to systemic coagulation defects. This is a clear advantage over pump-driven ECLA, which entails a significant risk of hemorrhagic complications (17%) and bleeding at the surgical site (28%) [4].
Another advantage of the system were the easy handling properties. By omitting the pump the total length of the AV-shunt could be kept at a minimum, thus facilitating nursing care and other supportive therapies such as ventilation in prone position or kinetic therapy. Inter-department patient transports can easily be performed without interruption of pECLA therapy.
Patient outcome observed in our study was superior to mortality rates from the European ECLA centers published in the mid-nineties (49%) [6]. The Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry report of 1997 revealed a 51% mortality of adult pump-driven ECLA when used for pulmonary support [7]. ECLA for cardiac support reported to ELSO provided a survival rate of only 42%. The overall survival in our study group was 60%. As we focused on hypoxemia and preserved hemodynamics when selecting our study group, renal failure at the time of entry was no exclusion criterion. Thus, our study population was heterogenous with respect to that parameter. Although initially all patients benefited from improved oxygenation, the final outcome was dramatically worse in the ARF patients (71% mortality) compared to non-ARF patients (23% mortality). Therefore, renal failure appears to be an unfavourable prognostic factor for pECLA therapy. When renal dysfunction is considered part of multiple end-organ dysfunction in the complex of arterial hypoxemia, it seems to be favourable to shift pECLA indication towards earlier stages of the disease.
Besides the encouraging early clinical results pECLA should also contribute to cost effectiveness in the management of acute lung failure. Oxygenator longevity, no additional costs for pump-heads, pumps and warming devices, decreased costs of complication management and less need for transfusions will further decrease therapy costs as compared to conventional ECLA therapy.
In conclusion, pECLA seems to be a useful supportive therapy in selected patients with severe ARDS and oxygenation failure but preserved hemodynamics. For current practice, ease of availability and handling, high effectiveness, low complication rate and relatively low costs made the method preferable to pump driven ECLA.
| Footnotes |
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| Appendix A Conference discussion |
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Dr Liebold: I agree there are a number of other supportive therapies, and IVOX is one of them. But we felt very comfortable with this system because it's very simple and I think we could demonstrate that we have a very low number of complications.
Mr Sosnowski: You didn't indicate how long patients had been on ventilator before.
Dr Liebold: Ten days. A mean of 10 days.
Mr Sosnowski: On high pressure?
Dr Liebold: Yes. High pressure ventilation, surfactant replacement therapy, high-frequency jet ventilation, all kind of supportive therapy you can imagine. And there was a consensus that otherwise all patients would have died.
Dr S. Svenmarker (Umea, Sweden): You mentioned that the flow through your circuit was about 2.6 l. I'm interested to know how much oxygen are you able to transfer through this unit. What I would assume is that the oxygen saturation before the oxygenator is rather high and also the oxygen transfer might be limited by this.
Dr Liebold: Because of the limited time I was not able to present all the parameters measured. The mean oxygen saturation in the arterial blood before the oxygenator at the time of pumpless ECLA start was 84.3%, and the oxygen saturation of blood passing the oxygenator was 99.9%. In other words, all the blood passing the oxygenator will be almost 100% oxygen saturated. Thus, the trans-MO flow and not the oxygen saturation seems to play the key role in the whole body oxygenation. As with our system flow rates of 25% of the patients cardiac output were reached and the flow even exceeded 4 l/min in individual cases we came in the range of conventional pump-driven systems.
Dr V. Kucera (Prague, Czech Republic): Your device is dependent on the arteriovenous pressure difference. What was the smallest patient you could use?
And second question is, is the device commercially available and who is producing this oxygenator?
Dr Liebold: The smallest patient we used was an adult. We had only adults. The youngest was a 17-year-old boy with a WaterhouseFridrichsen syndrome. He had a height of about 170 cm. So up to now we didn't apply the method to children. And to your second question, the components are commercially available, of course. You can buy the oxygenator, you can buy the silicone rubber tubings and all those things, but the system, the idea, is a new one.
Dr Kucera: You mentioned the low resistance of the oxygenator, but what was the company you used?
Dr Liebold: The company is Jostra (Hirrlingen, Germany). We measured the resistance in a particular patient with a cardiac output of about 10 min and the mean arterial pressure of 90 units.
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