It is Worth it to Increase the Use of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation?

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has become the standard of care for temporary life support in severe but potentially reversible cardiac or respiratory failure, when conventional treatments have failed. In the past 10 years, ECMO use has grown worldwide with improving outcomes, mostly in adults with severe acute respiratory failure. Since 2009, a further significant growth has occurred after the publication of the Conventional Ventilatory Support Versus ECMO for Severe Adult Respiratory Failure (CESAR) trial, a multicenter randomized-controlled study concluding that ECMO improves survival in acute respiratory distress syndrome and is cost-effective. In addition, the recent pandemic influenza A (H1N1) contributed to the wide use of ECMO, which has proven to be effective even in this peculiar subset of critically ill patients. More recently, with the introduction of the