Transport While on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Support.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support for severe acute respiratory failure has been increasing. Evidence suggests that higher volume centers have better outcomes, leading to a need for specialized ECMO transport teams. The inherent nature of the prehospital environment adds an additional layer of complexity; however, the experience of multiple centers has demonstrated that cannulating and transporting a patient on ECMO can be performed safely. The purpose of this review article is to discuss the state of knowledge with respect to ECMO transport with special emphasis given to how to actually undertake such complex transports.

Calcific embolization with infective endocarditis involving the posterior mitral leaflet in a patient with underlying hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.

We report a case of infective endocarditis (IE) involving the posterior mitral leaflet (PML) with calcific embolization in a patient with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM). Amongst HOCM patients with IE, the anterior mitral leaflet and basal septal myocardium are almost always involved due to the endocardial damage caused by recurrent outflow obstruction and valvular regurgitation. The management of our patient was complicated by moderate mitral stenosis, repeated calcific embolic strokes, dynamic left ventricular outflow track obstruction, and respiratory failure due to flash pulmonary edema. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of PML involvement in HOCM presenting in this manner.