Cardiac surgery in patients on chronic renal dialysis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Minimally invasive extracorporeal circuits (MiECC) have shown a positive impact on patient outcome in different high-risk populations. This retrospective study compares the outcome of these high-risk patients undergoing heart surgery either with a MiECC or a conventional extracorporeal circulation (CECC).

This is a single-center experience including 131 consecutive dialysis dependent patients undergoing cardiac surgery between January 2006 and December 2016. A propensity score matching was employed leaving 30 matched cases in each group.

After propensity score matching the 30-day mortality was significantly lower in the MiECC group (n = 3 (10%) vs n = 10 (33%) in the CECC group, p = .028). Further, intraoperative transfused units of packed red blood cells were lower in the MiECC group (1.4 ± 1.8 units vs 2.8 ± 1.7, p < .001).

There are evident advantages to using MiECC in dialysis dependent patients, especially regarding mortality. These findings necessitate additional research in MiECC usage in high-risk populations.