Recent achievements and future developments in neonatal cardiopulmonary bypass

Summary

A primary goal of improving neonatal cardiopulmonary bypass has been making the circuit smaller and reduce the blood contacting surfaces. As bypass circuit size has decreased, bloodless surgery has become possible even in neonates. Since transfusion guidelines are difficult to construct based on existing literature, these technical advances should be taken advantage of in conjunction with an individualized transfusion scheme, based on monitoring of oxygen availability to the tissues.

For the majority of neonatal heart operations, several centres have shifted towards normothermic bypass even for complex neonatal surgeries, in order to avoid the adverse effects of hypothermia. Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest is no longer a necessity but an option, and selective antegrade cerebral perfusion has become common practice; however technical uncertainties with regard to this technique have to be addressed, based on reliable neurologic monitoring.

Maintenance of patient‐specific heparin concentrations during bypass is another key goal, since neonates have lower baseline antithrombin concentrations and, therefore, a higher risk for inadequate thrombin inhibition and postoperative bleeding. Due to the immaturity of their haemostatic system, the standard coagulation tests alone are inappropriate to guide haemostatic therapy in neonates. The use of indirect heparin concentration assays and global viscoelastic assays in the operating room is likely to represent the optimal strategy, and requires validation in neonates.

Monitoring of global and regional indexes of oxygen availability and consumption on bypass have become possible, however, their use in neonates still has outstanding technical issues which should be addressed and hence needs further validation.

Due to the immaturity of the neonatal myocardium, single‐shot cold cardioplegia solutions are thought to confer the best myocardial protection; their superiority when compared to more conventional modalities, however, remains to be demonstrated.

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