Mechanical control of circulation: clinical results with intra-aortic balloon pumping and veno-arterial bypass in left and/or right cardiac failure.

Eighty-seven cases were studied in which IABP was used with open heart surgery, and 19 in which V-A bypass was employed. IABP was used in 31 patients with ischemic heart disease, which had the best survival rate (52%). Recent experience shows that the effects of IABP increase the operability of certain high-risk patients with severely impaired left ventricular function. In valvular heart disease, IABP was used with a survival rate of 34%. In congenital heart disease, the IABP survival rate was the worst among the groups studied because, in addition to left heart failure, many other factors also as cause the low cardiac output syndrome during corrective surgery for complicated cardiac anomalies. In total right heart bypass, or Fontan's procedure, three out of five cases were weaned from IABP; one of them is still alive. IABP was used with success in one case of valvular heart disease with almost no contraction of the right ventricle after repair. Therefore, IABP could be expected to improve the condition of severe postoperative right heart failure, or the equivalent condition, when there is subnormal left ventricular function in the postoperative period and pulmonary vascular resistance is normal. There has been only one successful V-A bypass lasting 11 hours, in valvular heart disease, and another case, in congenital heart disease, where the patient was weaned after V-A bypass lasting four days.