Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve heard a lot about different treatments for hospitalized patients. One that isn’t widely used but has been successful for some patients is ECMO, or Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. 

Spectrum News spoke with Dr. Randy Shuck about the machine and how it works. He says it pulls the blood out of a patient’s body and adds oxygen to it, then pumps it back in.

“It basically takes the CO2 out, puts the oxygen in, we make sure there’s enough oxygen, or not too much oxygen, and we’ll pump it back into the body,” Dr. Shuck explained.

Dr. Shuck says the machines aren’t widely availabl,e and it takes extensive training to be able to operate it. 

He also says the machine is not an option for every patient. It’s only considered for patients with comorbidities. There are also risks associated with it, including blood clots and infection. 

“This is extremely invasive. And people have reactions to it. We have problems with dialysis. We have problems with the chemicals and the ways we filter these things. And each person is a different person as far as how they’ll react to this,” Dr. Shuck said.

Dr. Shuck says there has been COVID-19 patients who had success with ECMO, but everyone reacts differently to it. 

 “This is actually a last ditch effort because they have to go through all the other things in order to get to this level. It’s a sad state, but if we don’t try the easy stuff first and we jump to the most invasive thing, than we may have more harm to the patient,” said Dr. Shuck.

A global study by The Lancet published in September looked at more than 1,000 patients on ECMO and found the estimated mortality to be below 40%.