Long-distance air transfer on commercial long-haul flights for patients on extracorporeal life support

Excerpt

Extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is now widely used for patients with acute cardiac failure. When ECLS withdrawal is impossible, survival most often requires either heart transplantation or implantation of long-term mechanical circulatory support. Transportation over long distances is sometimes required to reach hospitals where these procedures can take place. Reunion Island is a French territory with a population of 800,000 inhabitants, located 9300 km from the French capital, Paris. Due to these geographic specificities, these long transfers can only take place by commercial long-haul flights. We report here our 10 years (2005–2015) of experience with long-distance air transfers of patients on ECLS. We conducted a retrospective, single-center, observational study. This study was approved by the Regional Committee for Medical Research Ethics (CPP Bordeaux et Outre-Mer). The air transport was provided in a commercial Boeing airliner (737 and 777), with a flight time of 11 h. The ECLS consisted of polyvinyl chloride tubing, a membrane oxygenator (Quadrox™ PLS-Permanent Life Support; Maquet Cardiopulmonary, Hechingen, Germany), a centrifugal pump (Rotaflow™; Maquet Cardiopulmonary), and arterial and venous cannulae with rigid fixation. For the first two transfers, we used a Rotaflow^®. Since 2011, all transfers have used the ultracompact Cardiohelp^® system. …