Abstract 14857: Outcomes of Bloodless Congenital Cardiac Surgery on Cardiopulmonary Bypass

Abstract

Introduction: Bloodless cardiac surgery defined as blood transfusion-free open-heart surgery, where cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) circuits primed with crystalloid only and no intraoperative blood transfusion. Limited data have been published in this field. Hypothesis: We asked whether blood conservative surgery is feasible in congenital heart disease. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed patients who underwent bloodless cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease on CPB between January 2016 and December 2018. Our unique CPB system utilizes assisted venous drainage, bioactive coating, and reduced tubing size to decrease priming volume, and complement activation. Results: A total of 164 patients were reviewed (86 male and 78 female) at a median age of 9.6 years (range, 13 months-55 years), weight of 32 kg (IQR, 16-55), preoperative hemoglobin 13.7 g/dl (IQR, 12.6-14.9), and preoperative hematocrit of 40.3% (IQR, 37.2-44.3). Median CPB time was 81.5 minutes (IQR, 58-125), and median hematocrit coming off CPB was 26% (IQR, 23-29.7). Congenital Heart Surgery risk (STAT) category distributed in STAT 1 for 70 (43%), STAT 2 for 80 (49%), STAT 3 for 9 (5%), and STAT 4 for 5 (3%) of the patients. The majority (95%) of patients were extubated in the operating room with low complications rate during the hospital stay (7%). Only 6 (4%) patients needed a blood transfusion in the postoperative period with higher incidence of complications during the hospital course (LR 14.9; p<0.001). The median length of hospital stay was 3.6 days (IQR 2.6-5.6). There was no in-hospital mortality or 30 days mortality after surgery. Conclusions: Bloodless congenital cardiac surgery has a high success rate in selected low to medium surgical risk and even higher risk patients (STAT 3 and 4). Our patients had a low rate of complications and short hospital course. The blood product transfusion correlated significantly with a higher rate of complications during the postoperative course.