Peripheral extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support expands the application of robot-assisted coronary artery bypass.

Objective: Robot-assisted coronary artery bypass (RCAB) is typically not offered to higher risk patients with reduced cardiopulmonary function, critical coronary artery disease, and challenging chest wall anatomy. In this study, we report the novel use of nonemergency intraoperative peripheral extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as partial cardiopulmonary support during RCAB for patients who were considered high-risk candidates for conventional CAB and at the same time not eligible for RCAB without cardiopulmonary support.

Methods: Forty-five high risk patients (mean age, 68 years; Society of Thoracic Surgeons score, 6.27%; ejection fraction, 45%) underwent RCAB with nonemergency peripheral extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support for the following indications: inability to tolerate single-lung ventilation (n = 17; 38%), low ejection fraction <35% (n = 17; 38%), inadequate exposure of internal thoracic artery (n = 24; 53%), critical coronary artery disease (n = 16; 36%), and hemodynamic instability after anesthesia induction (n = 3; 7%). Following robotic internal thoracic artery takedown, all patients had beating heart minimally invasive direct CAB through a 2-inch minithoracotomy.

Results: Up to 30 days, there were no strokes (0%), myocardial infarctions (0%), or access vessel complications (0%). One noncardiac related mortality (2.2%) was related to hemodialysis access issues in a patient with preexisting end-stage renal disease. One redo-CAB (2.2%) patient required sternotomy to locate the target vessel. Thirty-four (75.6%) patients were extubated within 6 hours of surgery.

Conclusions: Our results examine the feasibility of using peripheral extracorporeal membrane oxygenation during RCAB for high-risk patients who otherwise had limited options. The use of peripheral extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in RCAB can potentially expand the surgical treatment options in high-risk coronary artery disease patients.