ECMO during the COVID-19 pandemic: moving from rescue therapy to more reasonable indications
Christian Karagiannidis, Thomas Bein, Tobias Welte
Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) led to an unprecedented number of patients on mechanical ventilation, many of them presenting with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) [1–4]. Depending on the resources of national healthcare systems, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was frequently applied during the pandemic [3, 5–7]. While intensive care unit experience improved with this new disease, various forms of drug therapies were introduced in living guidelines, resulting in a dynamic development in outcome of COVID-19 [8, 9]. Particularly noteworthy was the introduction of dexamethasone in the summer of 2020, and in 2021 the additional administration of tocilizumab in the early severe phase of the disease [10]. A third important factor that had a significant impact on the outcome of severe respiratory failure was the start of vaccination programmes, primarily for risk groups, depending on national strategies, followed by the general public. Shedding new light on ECMO treatment in ARDS: moving from rescue therapy to a standardised treatment option with defined indications <https://bit.ly/3zXAhyF>