Authors: Supady A, Taccone FS, Lepper PM, Ziegeler S, Staudacher DL
PMID: 33648538 PMCID: PMC7919616 DOI: 10.1186/s13054-021-03486-9
Abstract
Survival of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with severe respiratory failure treated with veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (V-V ECMO) ranges around 60%, according to recent studies. Initial recommendations for the use of V-V ECMO in COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) were largely based on studies from the pre-COVID-19 era. V-V ECMO was initiated in younger patients (i.e., < 71 years) and in those with rather short duration of mechanical ventilation (MV) prior to ECMO (i.e., < 7 or < 11 days, respectively). While it is reasonable to focus on selected ECMO cohorts in controlled trials, survival of COVID-19 patients treated with ECMO beyond these limitations remains unclear, so far. Here, we report survival data of COVID-19 ARDS patients treated with V-V ECMO from a large, international multicenter registry. Data were collected retrospectively from medical records at 3 ECMO centers in the USA, 9 in Germany, and 1 in Switzerland, Belgium, and Italy. At the participating centers, all patients with reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rtPCR) positive testing for SARS-CoV-2, who received V-V ECMO from March 12 to June 5, 2020 (i.e., during the first wave of the pandemic), were included.[/fusion_text][fusion_text columns="" column_min_width="" column_spacing="" rule_style="" rule_size="" rule_color="" hue="" saturation="" lightness="" alpha="" content_alignment_medium="" content_alignment_small="" content_alignment="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" sticky_display="normal,sticky" class="" id="" margin_top="" margin_right="" margin_bottom="" margin_left="" fusion_font_family_text_font="" fusion_font_variant_text_font="" font_size="" line_height="" letter_spacing="" text_transform="" text_color="" animation_type="" animation_direction="left" animation_color="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_delay="0" animation_offset="" logics=""]Keywords: COVID-19, ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome
