ABSTRACT
Objective Background Pulmonary endarterectomy (PEA) is a safe and effective surgical treatment for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. University of California at San Diego Medical Center is widely recognized as the world's leading referral center for PEA surgery with extensive surgical experience, which has surgically treated about 2400 patients till 2009, which account for more than 50% of the total cases in the world. Methods During visiting in UCSD, 32 pulmonary endarterectomy operations were performed by Prof. Stuart W Jamieson and Mechel M Madani. In these patients, 17 were males (53%), the average age was (47.56 ± 16.04 ) years, 47% with prior history of pulmonary embolism and/or deep vein thrombosis. Obvious pulmonary hypertension and hypoxemia were observed in all patients. Bilateral pulmonary endarterectomy was performed under cardiopulmonary bypass with profound hypothermic circulatory arrest. Results According to the classification of surgical specimens, 21.8% are type Ⅰ , 28.1% are type Ⅱ and 37.5% are type Ⅲ. The average time of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) was (236.32 ± 37.27) mins. The aortic cross clamp time was ( 111.69 ± 28.14) mins. The circulatory arrest time was (38.00±13.58 ) mins [ right side (21.39 ± 9.57 ) mins and left side ( 16.61 ± 6.83) mins]. Postoperatively the average mechanical ventilation time was ( 66.23 ± 99.24) hours, and the ICU stay was (4.62 ± 4.50 ) days.There was no postoperative moorality. All cases had significant decrease in systolic pulmonary artery pressure [(81.03 ± 16.92)mm Hg vs. (51.20±12.16) mm Hg] and pulmonary vascular resistance [(88.91 ±42.32) kPa · s · L-1 vs. (34.38 ±15.68 ) kPa · s · L-1 ], great improvement in cardiac output [(3.65 ±1.08 ) L/min vs. ( 5.85 ± 1.21 ) L/min ] and central venous pressure [(13.07 ± 2.11) cmH2O vs. ( 9.86 ± 3.02 ) cmH2O] postoperatively compared to preoperative data. Shortterm follow-up showed that the cardiac function of all cases returned to NYHA class Ⅰ or Ⅱ, with great improvement in CTPA.Conclusion PEA is definitive treatment of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. According the successful experience of UCSD PEA team, first and foremost pulmonary endarterectomy is a bilateral procedure, because chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension is mostly a bilateral disease. Second, cardiopulmonary bypass with the aid of deep hypothermia and circulatory arrest are essential to operator in recognizing the true endarterectomy plane of the media and in following the specimen to its feathered tail end in each branch, using these approaches can effectively reduce pulmonary hypertension and provide good hemodynamic and symptomatic results. Third, PEA remains an uncommon procedure in China. Only a few centers can perform high qualified PEA surgery. In most of inexperienced centers, type Ⅰ and type Ⅱ disease should be choose to operation.Patients with sPAP ≥100 mm Hg, PVR ≥ 100 kPa · s · L-1 or type Ⅲ disease will face more dangers peri-operation.