ECMO: A View from the East

The membrane lung is an extracorporeal device for directly exchanging respiratory gases in blood (1). By preventing hypoxia and hypercapnea in some patients for days or weeks the membrane lung can sustain life while otherwise intolerable pulmonary damage heals. Lung repair will be made possible since bypass with the artificial lung relieves the patient’s lungs of their primary burden of respiratory gas exchange and the handicaps of conventional ventilator therapy, high ventilator pressures and inspired oxygen tensions. Temporary circulatory assistance can also be delivered to assist the heart. In newborns with congenital diaphragmatic hernia after surgical repair or meconium aspiration and an unstable pulmonary circulation (pulmonary vasoconstriction and ductal shunting) partial venoarterial perfusion appears to improve survival rates (Fig.l)