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Ann Thorac Surg 2005;79:62-65
© 2005 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
a Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital Kiel, Hamburg, Germany
b Department of Pediatric Cardiology, University Hospital Kiel, Hamburg, Germany
c Department of Cardiology, Albertinen-Hospital, Hamburg, Germany
Accepted for publication July 6, 2004.
* Address reprint requests to Dr Böning, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital, Arnold-Heller-Str 7, 24105 Kiel, Germany (E-mail: aboening{at}kielheart.uni-kiel.de).
| Abstract |
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METHODS: Between January 2001 and September 2003, 559 cardiac procedures with extracorporeal circulation in 415 patients with congenital heart defects were performed in our institution. Because the development of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia requires previous exposition to heparin, only the 144 patients undergoing a scheduled second procedure on extracorporeal circulation were screened preoperatively. Of these 144 patients, 41 underwent also a third procedure and were screened before each procedure for presence of antiheparin-PF4 antibodies and for clinical signs of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.
RESULTS: The incidence of antiheparin-PF4 antibodies during the study period was 1.4% (2 of 144 patients). Patients with clinically significant heparin-induced thrombocytopenia could not be identified. Outside the study protocol, 2 more patients with antiheparin-PF4 antibodies were found. In these 4 patients, surgery was performed using lepirudin (Schering, Berlin, Germany) instead of the usual heparin management for extracorporeal circulation. Three of these 4 patients had an uneventful procedure and postoperative course. In 1 patient after total cavopulmonary connection, a reoperation was necessary on the seventh postoperative day owing to partial thrombosis of the lateral tunnel.
CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and of antiheparin-PF4 antibodies in patients undergoing repeated cardiac surgery is low. In antiheparin-PF4 antibody positive patients, the complete avoidance of heparin can be achieved and may account for an uneventful perioperative course.
| Introduction |
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Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia type II is a rare (1% to 2.4%) but severe complication after adult cardiac surgery [4, 5] with the use of heparin for the anticoagulation management during extracorporeal circulation (ECC). Data regarding the frequency of HIT after pediatric cardiac surgery are not available. After the first publications about an alternative anticoagulation method in adult cardiac surgery [6, 7], there are few anecdotal reports about the treatment of HIT-positive children [810]. Publications about the anticoagulation management of the ECC in pediatric cardiac surgery are even more rare [11].
We sought to identify the incidence of HIT II and antiheparin-PF4-antibody positivity in pediatric patients undergoing cardiac surgery and documented the differences in the intraoperative and postoperative anticoagulation management.
| Patients and Methods |
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Patients with second procedures less than 10 days after their first surgery (n = 10) and patients who died shortly after their first surgery (n = 6) were excluded from the study.
The congenital pathologies of the study patients were as follows: hypoplastic left heart syndrome (n = 70); transposition of the great arteries ([TGA] simple, with ventricular septal defect [VSD], double inlet left ventricle or double outlet right ventricle, n = 20); tetralogy of Fallot (also with pulmonary atresia, n = 16); coarctation (also with VSD, n = 13); truncus arteriosus communis (n = 5); total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage (n = 5); tricuspid atresia (n = 5); VSD/pulmonary stenosis (n = 2); miscellaneous (n = 8). The surgical procedures are displayed in Table 1. Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia type II was suspected if a positive value (cutoff point, 28.5%) of the antiheparin-PF4-antibody was detected by a heparin-induced platelet activation assay (Asserachrom HPIA; Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany).
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Lepirudin was added to the ECC priming (0.2 mg/kg body weight) and given intravenously (0.25 mg/kg body weight) before ECC start after having obtained the first ECT. During ECC, a lepirudin infusion was adjusted according to the relevant ECT, which was measured every 10 minutes. Target values were a minimum of 3.5 µg/mL and a maximum of 5 µg/mL patient blood. Thirty minutes before termination of the ECC, the lepirudin infusion was stopped, and the lepirudin was removed from the patient by ultrafiltration and stimulation of the diuresis.
If bleeding continued, a cell-saving device primed with lepirudin (1 mg/L rinsing fluid) was used, further renal elimination of lepirudin was intensified, and increased efforts for subtle surgical hemostasis were made.
| Results |
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The second patient, who had undergone corrective surgery for tetralogy of Fallot in March 1997, needed first a pulmonary artery plasty in April 1997, then a homograft implantation and patchplasty of the left pulmonary artery in December 1997. Owing to a homograft stenosis, a xenograft was implanted in March 2003 after a first positive PF4 value 10 days earlier. (For a description of the anticoagulation regime with lepirudin, see Methods.) The procedure and the postoperative course were uneventful (Table 2).
Patients 3 and 4 (outside the screening period) had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and underwent an uneventful hemifontan procedure with lepirudin anticoagulation on ECC (Table 2).
| Comment |
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Pooled data [1] indicate that HIT II is a rare (2.4% of all patients) but severe complication after adult cardiac surgery: venous or arterial thromboses develop in 38% to 81% of HIT II patients, leading to a mortality rate of 28% [13].
Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia type II is a clinical diagnosis based on substantial platelet count falls (usually by more than 50%) [1] and on the development of thrombosis and skin lesions [4]. The clinical diagnosis can be confirmed by a positive antiheparin-PF4-antibody value in one of the commercially available enzyme immunoassays. The work of Chilver-Stainer and associates [14] shows that high antiheparin-PF4-antibody titers, detected in the same enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test as used by us, are independently associated with an increased in vivo thrombin generation. Nonfunctional (insignificant) antibodies, which can also be detected by this enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, seem to lead to low antiheparin-PF4-antibody titers, which have a low retrospective probability score for HIT [14].
Generally, a negative antiheparin-PF4-antibody test rules out HIT II [15]. A positive antiheparin-PF4-antibody without clinical symptoms, however, does not necessarily prove HIT II to be the diagnosis [1], because seroconversion to antiheparin-PF4-antibody positivity after adult cardiac surgery occurs in 27% to 50% of patients [16]. This seroconversion is usually transient: a decline to nondetectable levels occurs after a median of 50 days [17]. That means that a patient after cardiac surgery coming to a second procedure with a positive antiheparin-PF4-antibody value does not necessarily have HIT II.
Therefore, the use of heparin [1] or of heparin combined with tirofiban, a platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa antagonist [18], instead of hirudin for anticoagulation management during ECC is discussed for patients after HIT II and without clinical symptoms independent from a positive antiheparin-PF4-antibody value.
After having had positive experiences with lepirudin, our clinical strategy now avoids heparin exposure for patients positive for antiheparin-PF4-antibody who are potentially at risk of developing HIT. In these patients, a small amount of heparin is sufficient for the development of HIT II, because the boostering of an antibody reaction to heparin is not dose-dependent. This reaction to heparin could be caused by a preoperative cardiac catheterization in a child before repeat cardiac surgery.
The second part of this study shows that in antiheparin-PF4-antibody positive patients, the successful anticoagulation management during ECC with lepirudin, as first reported for adult cardiac surgery by Riess and colleagues [6, 7], is possible also in pediatric cardiac surgery.
After having built up a working group of surgeons and perfusionists being responsible for the management of HIT II patients, we have gained experiences with the use of lepirudin for the anticoagulation management on ECC in adult patients. Because the incorrect dosage of lepirudin could lead to either clotting of blood in the ECC or bleeding after surgery, one of the most important management steps is controlling the lepirudin level by the ECT.
Based on these experiences in HIT IIpositive adults, we dared to extend the lepirudin management also to children positive for antiheparin-PF4-antibody.
In our practice, we see contraindications to lepirudin for anticoagulation on ECC in patients with renal dysfunctions and coagulation disorders. Because of the renal excretion of lepirudin, in patients with renal dysfunctions, hemofiltration/hemodialysis has to be used to remove lepirudin from the blood, which has been shown to be possible experimentally [19] as well as clinically [6]. Koster and coworkers showed the use of plasmapheresis filters to be more effective to eliminate from the patient's blood than hemofilters [20]. In our pediatric patients, lepirudin could be removed by ultrafiltration on ECC or modified ultrafiltration after ECC.
An alternative to lepirudin in patients with renal insufficiency could be bivalirudin, another r-hirudin currently under investigation, because of its mostly enzymatic metabolization. Bivalirudin has been shown to be effective in cardiac surgery with [21] and without [22] extracorporeal circulation. Danaparoid for the management of pediatric HIT II patients has also been described [23], but in adults, intraoperative clotting and postoperative bleeding occurred in many patients [1].
Our results can neither show a superiority of lepirudin over heparin as anticoagulation drug nor that there would have been any outcome difference if heparin had been used. However, the determination of a positive antiheparin-PF4 antibody value after heparin administration during cardiac catheterization shortly before repeat cardiac surgery justifies the suspicion of HIT II even without clinical signs and therefore the use of an alternative to heparin. Moreover, the high antiheparin PF4 titers seen in our patients are associated with an increased thrombin generation [14] placing these patients at a higher level of coagulation activation.
In conclusion, the incidence of antiheparin-PF4-antibodies in children undergoing repeated cardiac surgery is low (1.4%); clinical signs for HIT II could not be found in our patients throughout the screening period. In pediatric cardiac surgery patients who are antiheparin-PF4-antibody positive, the total avoidance of heparin is possible and accounts for an uneventful perioperative course.
| References |
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