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Severe Intra-aortic Balloon Pump Complications: A Single-Center 12-Year Experience
Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia, 04/10/2012
Severi L et al. – The data indicate that an intra–aortic balloon pump (IABP) is a valuable option in high–risk patients undergoing cardiac surgery even if not devoid of intrinsic risks for vascular complications (0.94%), septic complications (0.47%) and mortality (0.47%).
Methods- Ten thousand three hundred sixty-five patients scheduled for elective or emergency cardiac surgery over a 12-year period at a single center.
- Four hundred twenty-three patients received an IABP perioperatively.
- Careful preoperative screening for peripheral arterial disease, strict postoperative control, and the sheathless insertion technique to spare the arterial flow to the lower limb were performed routinely.
- The use of a perioperative IABP was 0.7% at the beginning of the observation period in 1999 and 7.3% in 2010, showing a fluctuating trend.
- Two patients (0.47%) died of direct complications, arterial wall damage and bleeding. Immediate surgical exploration and control of bleeding were followed by multiple-organ failure and death.
- Vascular complications, leading to lower-limb ischemia, occurred in 4 of 423 patients (0.94%).
- All of them underwent urgent vascular surgery and survived. Local sepsis occurred in 2 other patients (0.47%).
