Total artificial heart bridging: a temporary support for deteriorating heart transplantation-candidates--methods and results.

Since 1975 at the 2. Dept. of Surgery, University of Vienna, Austria, artificial circulation devices and artificial hearts have been constructed and in experimental use. We started a clinical heart transplantation (HTX) program in 1984, and up to now more than 40 HTXs have been performed. Since May 1986, 3 patients--all suffering from end stage dilatative cardiomyopathy--received total artificial heart (TAH) as a temporary support until HTX was possible. Two of them were transplanted after 9 and 10 days. The third patient, who additionally suffered from a postinfarctial lung abscess and had to undergo an indispensable lobectomy contemporary with TAH implantation, could not be transplanted due to an incurable infection, which he died of after 22 days on TAH. The temporary TAH implantation proved to be a valuable measure preventing life-threatening circulatory deterioration. After restoration of a sufficient circulation by the implanted system, the patients' general conditions improved and the concomitant dysfunctions of kidneys, brain, and other vital organs, due to cardiogenic shock, could be rectified in those two patients, who underwent transplantation. Thromboembolic complications were observed only in the third patient, who developed a small infarction in the anterior lobe of the left hemisphere caused by cerebral embolism after 3 weeks of TAH pumping. The use of TAH is liable to severe, even lethal, complications. At present it should be used only as a last resort. If a donor heart is not available, this measure can be a real chance to save the patient's life.