Mobile bedside ductus arteriosus closure in severely premature neonates using only echocardiographic guidance.

BACKGROUND: Transcatheter closure of the patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in premature infants is currently dependent on fluoroscopic guidance and transportation to the catheterization laboratory.

AIM: We describe a new echocardiographically guided technique to allow our team to move to the bedside at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the referring center for percutaneous treatment of PDA in premature infants.

METHODS: This is a single-center, retrospective, primarily descriptive analysis. Clinical details about the procedure, its outcomes, and complications were collected.

RESULTS: Fifty-eight neonates with a median weight of 1110 g (range 730-2800) and postnatal age of 28 days (range 9-95) underwent percutaneous PDA closure. Five of them were treated in our center with ultrasound guidance only and the other 53 in 18 different neonatology units in 12 towns. The median duration of the procedure was 40 min (range 20-195 min). There were no procedural deaths. There was one residual shunt for 3 weeks, in all other patients the duct closed completely in the first few hours after the intervention. In one patient the procedure had to be interrupted because of a pericardial effusion which had to be drained, the PDA was closed successfully interventionally 5 days later. One device-related aortic coarctation had to be stented. One embolization and one late migration occurred and required treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: Echocardiographically guided transcatheter closure of the PDA in prematures was repeatedly possible and allowed that the procedure is performed at the bedside at the NICU with an acceptable rate of complications.