A review of a newly established ECMO program in a university affiliated cardiac center.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is an established rescue treatment option for severe respiratory and cardiac failure in infants and neonates and has recently become widely utilised in adults. ECMO support can be initiated rapidly in an emergency setting both by percutanous implantation and surgically; it allows transportation of patients in cardio-pulmonary collapse and bridging of critically ill patients to be recovered, other support measures or transplantation. The aim of this study was to report authors' initial experience after starting an ECMO program in a university-based cardiac center.

[Cardiac decompression using pulmonary artery drainage during operations with extracorporeal circulation].

The authors report their experience with the application of decompression of the left ventricle of the heart by means or active suction from pulmonary artery. This way of heart drainage has been so far used in 53 patients, who were operated in extracorporal circulation. The drainage of pulmonary artery proved to be completely successful.