Correlation of clinical embolic events with coagulability in a patient with a total artificial heart.

A 46-year-old female patient was supported for 185 days with a total artificial heart, underwent successful transplantation, and survived for over 1 year with no clinical residual findings suggestive of embolic events. Daily observation, analysis of a large battery of coagulation tests, and eight serial computed tomographic scans suggest that she had 12 embolic events while receiving mechanical support. Furthermore, it appears that the events were associated temporally with several mild infections and that coagulation was stimulated several days to 1 week before we detected the events.