Coronavirus: What is ECMO technique that is used for patients with extremely damaged lungs

Aside from getting used for Coronavirus sufferers, the ECMO method can be used for sufferers present process coronary heart or lung transplant. (Credit score: Thinkstock Pictures)

Prior to now few weeks because the extreme circumstances of Coronavirus immediately elevated, sufferers who’re dealing with acute Oxygen scarcity issues have been handled with a variety of therapies. One such medical intervention resorted to by medical doctors in excessive circumstances is ECMO or extracorporeal membrane oxygen. When the sufferers fail to answer mechanical air flow via ventilator and outdoors Oxygen help, medical doctors use the ECMO method to resuscitate severely ailing sufferers, the Indian Specific reported.

What’s ECMO method?
The ECMO which consists of a synthetic coronary heart and a synthetic pair of lungs works from outdoors the physique and provides wanted Oxygen to the blood and removes the Carbon dioxide in return. The ECMO method, which was initially developed within the Nineteen Sixties to assist infants affected by respiratory misery syndrome, solely began getting used for the therapy of grownup sufferers about 5 years in the past.

How does ECMO method work?
A tube connecting the factitious organs is inserted into a big vein, neck, chest or groin of the affected person. The tube facilitates the motion of the affected person’s blood to the factitious oxygenator outdoors. Whereas Carbon dioxide is faraway from the blood, Oxygen is added to the blood which is pumped again to the affected person’s physique. It’s to be stored in thoughts that the ECMO method is among the final choices earlier than the medical doctors when each different doable choice has been dominated out. Aside from getting used for Coronavirus sufferers, the ECMO method can be used for sufferers present process coronary heart or lung transplant.

Are there dangers concerned with ECMO method?
One of many main dangers related to the ECMO method is possibilities of extreme bleeding. For the reason that sufferers are supplied with the blood thinning drugs earlier than being placed on the ECMO method, the sufferers run the chance of extreme bleeding from completely different elements of the physique. Furthermore, various sufferers on ECMO method fail to supply sufficient blood circulate to their kidneys via the factitious method and this would possibly result in kidney failure. The kidney failure in medical phrases is called acute renal failure.

As exterior tubes enter the very deep of the affected person’s physique, the chance of an infection can be very excessive within the physique. The surface germs can discover straightforward passage into the physique of the affected person with the assistance of the exterior tubes. The already depressed immunity additional will increase the possibilities of extreme an infection.