Australian and New Zealand perfusion survey: equipment and monitoring.

The current practice of perfusion in Australia and New Zealand continues to adopt new techniques and procedures into clinical practice. Our aims were to report current practice in 2003 and to compare and contrast current practice with historic practice. A total of 62 centers (40 perfusion groups) performing procedures using cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) were identified and were e-mailed a detailed electronic survey. The survey was comprised of an excel worksheet that contained 233 single answer questions (either dropdown lists, yes/no, true/false, or numeric) and 12 questions that allowed the respondent to provide a commentary. Respondents were instructed to answer all questions based on what represented the predominant practice of perfusion in their institutions during 2003. We report an 89% response rate representing a caseload of 20,688 adult cases. These data allowed us to profile the following. A standard adult CPB setup in 2003 consisted of a membrane oxygenator (100% of cases), a roller pump (70%) as the main arterial pump, although a centrifugal pump would be considered for selected procedures (30%), a circuit incorporating a hard-shell venous reservoir (86%), and a mixture of biocompatible and non-biocompatible circuit components (66%). The circuit would include a pre-bypass filter (88%), an arterial line filter (94%), and would allow monitoring of the following: hard-shell venous reservoir low level (100%) with servo-regulation of the arterial pump (85%), microbubble alarm (94%) with servo-regulation of the arterial pump (79.5%), arterial line pressures (100%) with servo-regulation of the arterial pump (79%), inline venous O2 saturation (100%), and inline hematocrit (58%). Perfusion practice in Australia and New Zealand has adopted changes over the last decade; however, some areas of practice show wide variation. This survey provides a baseline of contemporary practice for Australian and New Zealand perfusionists.