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.).