In the future, can ECMO be an alternative for ventilators for all patients?
Dr. Hudak: The indications for ECMO are related to the severity of the patient’s disease. Most patients who are on ventilators will recover with traditional treatment and without ECMO. The ratio of patients that have been treated with ECMO to the number of patients treated with ventilators is very low. So really, ECMO is reserved for those patients for whom the ventilator support and the amount of oxygen they’re on or other care they receive is very high and for whom the disease has become life threatening. How would ECMO change the outcome for lung transplant patients or lung disease patients? Dr. Hudak: It’s difficult to say, because the real issue is availability of the organs, and ECMO is generally used as a short term treatment. Most ECMO runs do not extend beyond three weeks. Many of the major risks of ECMO – for instance, thrombi, emboli, bleeding and infection — become more likely as the duration of ECMO increases. For a few lucky patients ECMO has been used successfully as a
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