
The primary goal of supporting a patient with VV-ECMO is to promote lung rest via lung-protective ventilation.
Sweep membranes full#
Lung-protective ventilation strategies are paramount to lung recovery and full utilization of ECMO can help facilitate recovery. The sweep gas allows for the removal of CO 2 in an efficient manner and allows low tidal volume ventilation and lung rest to allow for patient recovery. ) This oxygen flow will be the source of oxygen used for gas exchange in the membrane lung. To provide oxygenation and ventilation for the patient, all ECMO circuits have an oxygen supply (Fi o 2) and “sweep gas” flowmeters in line with the circuit. All are centrifugal pumps and provide an efficient flow for ECMO support. Multiple brands of pumps are commercially available. This process is facilitated by a simple system of cannulas, a blood pump, a nonmicroporous polymethylpentene oxygenator, and a heat exchanger. Veno-venous (VV) or veno-arterial (VA) ECMO requires the drainage of deoxygenated blood from the venous system, moving it across a membrane oxygenator that removes carbon dioxide (CO 2), replenishes oxygen, and returns oxygenated blood back to the patient’s venous or arterial system depending on the use of VV or VA, respectively. Since that time, ECMO utilization has expanded globally and thus clinicians in the critical care realm must possess a basic understanding of indications, contraindications, and complications of ECMO support.Ĭomponents of the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation circuit 5 ECMO became more ubiquitous in the late 2000s during the H1NI influenza epidemic as ECMO was used successfully in many patients for treatment of ARDS.
Sweep membranes trial#
4 Modern ECMOs roots, however, are in neonatal critical care whereby Dr Robert Bartlett pioneered its use in pediatric cardiopulmonary failure and published the first randomized controlled trial comparing ECMO to standard care in 1985. The first successful use of ECMO in the ICU was reported in a 24-year-old trauma patient who was cannulated due to posttraumatic ARDS.

This, along with the recognition that ECMO required continuous anticoagulation allowed for prolonged extracorporeal support to become a reality.

2 The development of silicone in 1957, a rubber material that allows for efficient gas exchange, led to the development of the “membrane oxygenator” and the coined phrase ‘extracorporeal membrane oxygenation’ (ECMO). However, these early bubble oxygenators caused significant hemolysis thus limiting the use of a bubble oxygenator for prolonged gas exchange. 1 Soon after, bubble oxygenators were invented by C. Development of modern extracorporeal life support devices began with the invention of the cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) circuit by John Gibbon, successfully used in cardiac surgery for the first time in 1953 when extracorporeal support was used to repair an atrial septal defect in an 18-year-old patient. History of extracorporeal membrane oxygenationĮxtracorporeal life support is the ability to supplement native pulmonary and/or cardiac function in the setting of native system failure.
