In critically Covid-19 ill patients, when oxygen support fails, specialists may resort to mechanical ventilation like ECMO to help maintain oxygenation.
- However, some patients are no longer able to respond to such intervention — their heart and lungs are too weak or diseased to carry out the exchange of gases that is needed to stay alive. In these extreme cases, doctors may choose to apply ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygen).
What is ECMO?
- ECMO is as an artificial heart and pair of artificial lungs outside the body , which removes carbon dioxide from the patient’s blood and adds oxygen to it.
- The technique, which works by inserting a plastic tube into a large vein and/or artery through the neck, chest or groin of the patient, was developed in the 1960s to support newborns and infants with respiratory distress syndrome and cardiac abnormalities.
- But now ECMO has been widely adapted for use in adults only over the last five years.
(Source: Indian Express)
