Patients’ perioperative characteristics, early and mid-term outcomes
Out of 297 transplanted patients in the study period, 21 (7.1%) were placed on VV-ECMO as BTT. Out of these 21, 13 (62%) patients were awake, non-invasively ventilated and participated in rehabilitation and ambulation. There were no mechanically ventilated patients in the non-BTT group (Table 1). As compared to non-BTT patients, BTT patients were younger with a slightly lower BMI and, in line with the VV-ECMO support, had considerably lower preoperative hemoglobin and platelet count, longer activated partial thromboplastin time and higher international normalized ratio (Table 1). The most common diagnosis in both groups was cystic fibrosis (90.5% in BTT patients vs. 39.1% in non-BTT patients; Table 1). Single LTx was performed only in 8 out of 276 non-BTT patients. (Table 1). Intraoperative use of CPB was similar in both groups, while the use of intraoperative ECMO and perioperative blood transfusion were considerably higher in BTT patients (Table 1). Postoperative 30-day mortality and the incidence of early postoperative complications (need for ECMO, delayed chest closure, surgical re-exploration, tracheostomy, chest drainage, chest infection, sepsis and AKI requiring RRT) were higher in BTT patients compared with non-BTT patients (Table 2). One-year mortality was also higher in BTT than in non-BTT patients (Figure S1.).