Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenator Assistance as “Bridge” to Combined Heart and Liver Transplantation

Heart transplantation is accepted worldwide as the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage heart disease who have a life expectancy of less than 1 year. Mechanical Cardiac assistance might be necessary as a bridge to transplantation and, in selected cases, to multiorgan transplantation. We report a successful case of a 15-day extracorporeal membrane oxygenator assistance as bridge to combined heart and liver transplantation in a young man with dilated cardiomyopathy and chronic hepatitis C virus infection.