{"id":22851,"date":"2017-09-12T13:37:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T18:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=22851"},"modified":"2025-05-09T10:53:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:53:48","slug":"heart-lung-machine-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2017\/09\/12\/heart-lung-machine-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart Lung Machine: What 5 Facts Should Patients Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For most patients needing heart valve surgery, a heart-lung machine is typically used during the operation. As you may know, the heart-lung machine enables the surgeon to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/08\/18\/heart-stop-valve-replacement-repair-surgery\/\">stop and cool the heart<\/a> so the valve can be fixed while the heart is not beating.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22841\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/heartlungmachinepicture.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"485\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>A Quick History of the Heart-Lung Machine<\/h2>\n<p>In the past, I&#8217;ve shared a little bit about heart-lung machines. That said, I thought you might like to learn more about the history and the development of this very interesting device.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The first prototype of the heart-lung machine was constructed all the way back in 1885 by an Austrian-German Physiologist by the name of Maximillian von Frey.<\/li>\n<li>The first working heart-lung machine was tested during experiments on canines in the 1920s by Soviet scientist, Sergei Brukhonenko.<\/li>\n<li>The first successful open heart procedure &#8211; on a human &#8211; using a heart-lung machine was performed on May 6, 1953 by John Gibbon at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. That operation was a repair of an atrial septal defect.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The heart-lung machine goes by a couple different names including &#8220;cardiopulmonary bypass&#8221; and the &#8220;pump&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>How Does the Heart-Lung Machine Work?<\/h2>\n<p>Over the years, I&#8217;ve been fortunate to observe many operations that use a heart-lung machine.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, it&#8217;s amazing to see the surgeon and the medical team leverage this device throughout a heart valve operation. So you know, the person responsible for the heart-lung machine is known as the &#8220;perfusionist&#8221;. He or she is responsible for the management of the patient&#8217;s circulatory and respiratory activity during a procedure.<\/p>\n<p>To help you learn more about the heart-lung machine, I thought you might like to see this video that I just found. In the video, Dr. Max Feinstein discusses the use of the heart-lung machine.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F0mTMYpaf4c?si=vGOhW1_ijH91KByU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious to see how the heart-lung machine works in 3 steps, I thought you might also like to see this step-by-step diagram.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22832\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/..\/Images\/heart-lung-machine-work-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"331\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Do All Valve Procedures Use the Heart-Lung Machine?<\/h2>\n<p>So you know&#8230; Not all heart valve procedures require a heart-lung machine.<\/p>\n<p>Today, there are several transcatheter procedures (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/tavr-procedure.php\/\">TAVR<\/a>, MitraClip) that are commercially available, or in clinical trials, that do not use a heart-lung machine. Please note, however, these procedures are currently reserved for patients who are at intermediate risk, high risk or inoperable for surgery.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that the heart-lung machine is not used in catheter-based procedures is often referenced as a potential, therapeutic benefit for the patient. As you may know, there are some potential complications that may occur from the use of bypass including post-perfusion syndrome, more commonly referred to as &#8220;pumphead&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, there are potential complications with most procedures. Fyi, my personal experience with the heart-lung machine resulted in no complications. \u00a0And, many, many, many, many patients in this community had successful open heart procedures that used the heart-lung machine&#8230; They&#8217;re doing fine too!<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/stop\/\">Ask Dr. Chikwe: Stopping The Heart During Cardiac Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/restart\/\">Restarting The Heart After Cardiac Surgery with Dr. Gerdisch<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope this helped you learn more about the heart-lung machine!<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medical-technology"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22851"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40902,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22851\/revisions\/40902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}