Background

Transport with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in the hospital setting can become a challenge as well as in the out-of-hospital setting. In particular, the management of intra-hospital transport with ECMO support of the critically ill patient foresees his shift from the intensive care to the diagnostic areas, from the diagnostic areas to the interventional and surgical areas.

Case presentation

In this context, we present a life-saving transport case with the veno-venous (VV) configuration of the ECMOLIFE Eurosets system, for right heart and respiratory failure in a 54-year-old woman, due to thrombosed obstruction of the right superior pulmonary vein, following mitral valve repair surgery in minimally invasive approach in a patient already operated on for complex congenital heart disease. After stabilizing the vital parameters with Veno-venous ECMO for 19 h, the patient was transported to hemodynamics for angiography of the pulmonary vessels, where the diagnosis of obstruction of the pulmonary venous return was made. Subsequently, the patient was brought back to the operating room for a procedure of unblocking the right superior pulmonary vein using a minimally invasive approach, passing from the ECMO to the support in extracorporeal circulation.

Conclusions

The transportable ECMOLIFE Eurosets System was safe and effective during transport in maintaining the vital parameters of oxygenation and CO₂ reuptake and systemic flow, allowing the patient to be mobilized for diagnostic tests instrumental to diagnosis. The patient was extubated 36 h after the surgical procedures and was discharged 10 days later from the hospital.