ORIENTATION ON HEART LUNG MACHINE
Keerthiraj Nagarajan
CARDIAC PERFUSIONIST (INTERN) CARING-->BEATS??AND BREATHES??
A heart-lung machine is a piece of equipment that temporarily takes over the work of the heart and/or lungs, providing blood and oxygen to the body. Also called a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (CBM) or a heart-lung bypass machine, it is most often used during serious procedures that require the heart to be stopped.
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Reasons a Heart-Lung Machine Is Used
Also known as cardiopulmonary bypass
Updated on February 06, 2023
Medically reviewed by Maria M. LoTempio, MD
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
A heart-lung machine is a piece of equipment that temporarily takes over the work of the heart and/or lungs, providing blood and oxygen to the body. Also called a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (CBM) or a heart-lung bypass?machine, it is most often used during serious procedures that require the heart to be stopped.
Patients are kept on a heart-lung machine for only as long as it takes to stop the heart from beating, complete open-heart surgery?or a procedure on the lungs,?and restart the heart.1
A heart-lung machine may also be used on a person who needs heart or respiratory support for non-surgical reasons. For example, the machine can be used for someone with heart failure who is waiting for a heart transplant.
What Does a Heart-Lung Machine Do?
To stop the heart without harming the patient, oxygenated blood must continue to circulate through the body during surgery without stopping.?The cardiopulmonary bypass pump does the work of the heart, pumping blood through the body and making sure that the tissues of the body get the oxygen they need.2
The machine also adds oxygen to the blood while taking over the pumping action of the heart, replacing the function of the lungs
Table of Contents
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A heart-lung machine is a piece of equipment that temporarily takes over the work of the heart and/or lungs, providing blood and oxygen to the body. Also called a cardiopulmonary bypass machine (CBM) or a heart-lung bypass?machine, it is most often used during serious procedures that require the heart to be stopped.
Patients are kept on a heart-lung machine for only as long as it takes to stop the heart from beating, complete open-heart surgery?or a procedure on the lungs,?and restart the heart.1
A heart-lung machine may also be used on a person who needs heart or respiratory support for non-surgical reasons. For example, the machine can be used for someone with heart failure who is waiting for a heart transplant.
What Does a Heart-Lung Machine Do?
To stop the heart without harming the patient, oxygenated blood must continue to circulate through the body during surgery without stopping.?The cardiopulmonary bypass pump does the work of the heart, pumping blood through the body and making sure that the tissues of the body get the oxygen they need.2
The machine also adds oxygen to the blood while taking over the pumping action of the heart, replacing the function of the lungs.
When a Heart-Lung Machine Is Used
There are two primary reasons why a heart-lung machine is used. The most common use is so the heart can be temporarily stopped for surgery,3 but the machine can also be used to support people with heart failure.
Heart Surgery
Some?cardiac surgeries would be impossible to perform with the heart beating, as surgery would be performed on a “moving target” or there would be significant blood loss.
A great example of this is a heart transplant procedure: The patient's heart must be removed from the body so the donated heart can be put in.4?Without a pump to replace the action of the heart, the heart transplant would be impossible.
Lung Surgery
The same is true of some lung surgeries; there must be a way to oxygenate the blood when the lungs cannot.
A lung transplant procedure requires an alternative way to oxygenate blood when the lungs cannot, but the heart may continue to beat during the procedure.5
Heart Failure
For other patients, the pump is used not for surgery, but to help keep a patient alive when they are experiencing heart failure that would be life-ending.?In some rare cases, a heart failure patient may be placed on the pump to support the patient until a heart transplant becomes available.?
How Does a Heart-Lung Bypass Machine Work?
The surgeon attaches special tubing to a large blood vessel (like starting a very large IV) that allows oxygen-depleted blood to leave the body and travel to the bypass machine. There, the machine oxygenates the blood and returns it to the body through the second set of tubing, also attached to the body.3 The constant pumping of the machine pushes the oxygenated blood through the body, much like the heart does.
The placement of the tubes is determined by the preference of the surgeon. The tubes must be placed away from the surgical site so they do not interfere with the surgeon’s work, but placed in a blood vessel large enough to accommodate the tubing and the pressure of the pump. The two tubes ensure that blood leaves the body before reaching the heart and returns to the body after the heart, giving the surgeon a still and mostly bloodless area to work.