- Patients in the UK who underwent extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) were more likely to survive than those who did not have the treatment, according to the research.
- That is the key finding of an analysis of 1,363 people treated for severe Covid using a ventilator in the UK between March 2020 and February 2021.
- The hope is that the extra oxygen will improve patients breathing enough to help them pull through.
According to research, a large number of critically ill Covid-19 patients survived because they were given the NHS’s highest level of intensive care, which includes an artificial lung that breathes for them as reported by The Guardian.
Surviving treatment
Patients in the UK who underwent extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) were more likely to survive than those who did not have the treatment, according to the research.
People whose breathing capacity had collapsed were more likely to stay alive if they had ECMO rather than only a spell on a mechanical ventilator.
That is the key finding of an analysis of 1,363 people treated for severe Covid using a ventilator in the UK between March 2020 and February 2021.
They included 243 who were taken by ambulance to either Guy’s and St Thomas’ or the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospital trust in London to try to save their lives using ECMO.
Doctors also had to consider who would benefit most from the limited availability of artificial life support, which is costly and labour-intensive, at the two specialist centres.
The study, which has been published in the journal Intensive Care Medicine, found that 44% of the non-ECMO group died, while mortality was much lower among those who had the treatment at 26%.
Significant efforts
During ECMO, blood is taken out of the unconscious patient’s body, put into an oxygenator, has oxygen added and carbon dioxide removed and is then reinserted into the patient.
“ECMO had a substantial effect on saving lives in the UK.
Lives were saved due to the significant effort on the part of NHS staff to ramp up ECMO provision to provide service for as many [patients] as possible,” said Dr Luigi Camporota, a consultant in intensive care medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ who was one of the co-authors.
NHS bosses believe ECMO saved several hundred lives during the pandemic.
In this study, 22.9% of the ECMO and 52.9% of the non-ECMO patients died during the first wave of Covid.
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Source: The Guardian
