Total Artificial Heart and Ventricular Assist Devices 'When the Total Artificial Heart Sounds the Alarm'

摘要

A patient with an implanted total artifical heart and his family are trained to perform the exchange of the driver unit in case of emergency alarm. In the actual case the emergency doctor was engaged in the treatment of a patient with an implanted total artificial heart and was confronted with an error signal of both drivers (primary driver and backup-driver). In hospital a slight increase of the systolic blood pressure up to 150mmHg could be identified as the reason for the error signal of both drivers, which couldn't be terminated in the prehospital phase. An examination of the external driver-function was initiated by the producer and came to the result, that a defective vendor part delivered by an external supply firm was the reason that the warranted ejection pressure of the left pump chamber of 210mmHg could not be established. So already a moderate increase of the blood pressure of 150mmHg, which laid over the fault-related low ejection pressure of the artificial heart, caused a drop of the bloodflow. In this context signs of a beginning pulmonary edema could be found indicating a volume overload of the lung.