Listen folks, we’ve got a big problem here, a big problem. COVID-19, it’s causing a huge increase in the use of this thing called veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, V-V ECMO for short. It’s a bridge to transplantation or recovery, but with COVID-19, it’s different. It’s different, folks. We’re seeing longer durations of ECMO support. So, we decided to look into it, to see what’s going on.

We did a review, a single-center retrospective review, of patients with COVID-19 related ARDS who were put on ECMO. We looked at the outcomes, the transplant free survival, the mortality, the discharge rates, of those who needed V-V ECMO support for more than 50 days.

Here’s what we found. The median age was 48 years, and 72% were males. The median duration of ECMO support was 84 days. 61% had right ventricular dysfunction and 72% had pneumothoraces. There was a 33% mortality rate. One patient is still on ECMO. 61% were discharged, and 3 needed a lung transplant.

So here’s the deal. Prolonged V-V ECMO, it can have comparable outcomes to the shorter runs. If we have the device and the staff, we can justify these longer runs in a highly selected patient population. It’s a big deal, folks. A big deal.