Intra aortic balloon pump: literature review of risk factors related to complications of the intraaortic balloon pump

Unfortunately, the clinical assessment of the complications associated to the use of this supporting device, underestimates the frequency of such complications.This report has looked at the current literature and attempt to identify incremental risk factors related to the development of adverse effects during support with an intaaortic balloon pump.The paper concludes that in contrary to early reports, newer studies have shown that complications following intraaortic balloon pump treatment, is decreasing. Moreover the literature suggests that the thrombosis and infective complications are relevant to the duration of the pump treatment, while the ischemic problems of the limbs are mostly linked to the atherosclerotic status of the common femoral artery.The complication rates when using an intra aortic balloon pump are high and may account for up to 50% according to Harvey et al [1], with an average 20-30% [2,3].Rates depend on the definition of complications as well as on whether the data are collected in advance or not. Certain researchers argue that clinical studies may significantly underestimate the actual frequency of complications. The high occurrence of ischemia in certain studies is possibly related to the lower mortality rate. On the contrary, the low occurrence of ischemia in some other studies, may be possibly linked to the fact that the patients died following a cardiogenic shock before the development of the clinical diagnosis of vascular complications.Thrombocytopenia is currently the commonest complication occuring in 50% of the patients followed by fever in almost 40% of the cases [2]. Bleeding is also common with aorto-iliac artery injury and dissection, thromboembolism, distal leg ischaemia and balloon entrapment-rupture, to occur less frequently. Despite this, over 70,000 IABP insertions are undertaken annually in the United States alone, with an incidence of between 5-10% amongst all patients undergoing cardiac surgery.Various researchers have rep