[Relatively long time use of percutaneous cardiopulmonary support after unsuccessful weaning from intra-operative extracorporeal circulation--clinical considerations from an experience of 5 patients].

Percutaneous cardiopulmonary support (PCPS) was used in 5 patients (4 males and 1 female); 70.2 +/- 10.8 years old) who underwent open heart surgery and failed to wean from the extracorporeal circuit because of profound heart failure unresponsive to maximal doses of catecholamines and intra-aortic balloon pump support. Duration of PCPS was 6975 +/- 5516 min, and the average flow was 1.51 +/- 0.26 l/min/m2. Heparin-coated circuit including the oxygenator was used to minimize the necessary dose of heparin, and activated clotting time (Celite ACT) was maintained between the range of 130 and 200 seconds. Despite this low-dose heparinization, mediastinal hematoma formation and subsequent cardiac tamponade occurred in 4 patients. Weaning from PCPS was successful in 3 patients for whom reexploration to remove hematoma was performed, and 2 of these 3 achieved long-term survival. During the use of PCPS, ipsilateral femoral artery, through which part of the pump flow was actively perfused. Owing to this maneuvering, limb ischemia did not occur in any case. From these findings, we could conclude that reexploration for mediastinal hematoma should be performed in weaning from PCPS for postoperative patients, even when low-dose heparinization was employed, and that active perfusion through the 18g catheter downstream to the ipsilateral lower limb is effective in preventing limb ischemia during relatively long time PCPS.