Two cases of chronic pulmonary thromboembolism saved by postoperative use of a percutaneous cardiopulmonary support device.

We performed pulmonary thromboendarterectomy under deep hypothermic intermittent circulatory arrest in 18 patients with chronic pulmonary thromboembolism from August 2001 to January 2004. In some of these cases, reperfusion pulmonary edema prevented a satisfactory improvement in hemodynamic data soon after the surgery. Here we report two cases of chronic pulmonary thromboembolism in which we successfully prevented postoperative persistent pulmonary hypertension and hypoxia caused by severe reperfusion pulmonary edema by the use of a percutaneous cardiopulmonary support device.