Clinical experience with the mini-extracorporeal circulation system: an evolution or a revolution?

Purpose We studied a cohort of 150 patients operated on with a new cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) system. This is the mini-extracorporeal circulation (MECC) system. Description The MECC is a fully heparin coated closed-loop CPB system that includes a centrifugal pump and has a priming volume of 450 mL. Between March 2001 and September 2002, 150 consecutive patients were operated on using the mini-CPB (MECC) method. This includes 105 coronary artery bypass graft and 45 aortic valve replacement patients. The median age was 66.7 ± 10.7 years with a gender ratio of 3.27 males to 1 female. Evaluation The 30-day operative mortality was 1.3%. The hemoglobin concentration was stable and perioperative transfusion was needed in only 6% of all patients. The renal and neuropsychiatric complications were less than 1%. Conclusions In our experience, the MECC system is a reliable new concept for CPB with good clinical results.