title: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenator assistance as "bridge" to combined heart and liver transplantation.
abstract: Heart transplantation is accepted worldwide as the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage heart disease who have a life expectancy of less than 1 year. Mechanical Cardiac assistance might be necessary as a bridge to transplantation and, in selected cases, to multiorgan transplantation. We report a successful case of a 15-day extracorporeal membrane oxygenator assistance as bridge to combined heart and liver transplantation in a young man with dilated cardiomyopathy and chronic hepatitis C virus infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac Surgery, S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dell'Amore
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Botta
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gallieri
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Arpesella
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D015199:Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D008297:Male; D018754:Ventricular Dysfunction / Q000503:physiopathology