It is a form of life support. I have a disease, catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome, that sometimes needs a ECMO for survival and thankfully my local hospital has availibility. I have been able to avoid being on one and hope never to need one. Hope he gets better. ECMO is a last resort but has improved CAPS survival rates greatly. Severe covid resembles Catastrphic antiphospolipid syndrome quite alot.

Rorah, he had Covid last year and thanks to this treatment, he is alive and well today! He is doing great, back to normal life pretty much and enjoying time with his wife and 3 young children! This allowed his lungs to rest and heal. I'm so thankful they now how this machine close to me.

I only heard about it recently. I read a news story about a woman who had gotten covid while pregnant, ended up in a coma, baby was delivered by C-section. She was on ECMO at some point. The context of the story was that by the time she recovered enough to see her baby, the baby was 3 months old. I think there were two older children.

ECMO technology has been around for awhile. A friend’s infant benefited from the knowledge/equipment/science as a premie back in the 80s.

Yes @maddielee, but i was talking about as a covid treatment.

Yes ECMO has been used to treat covid from the beginning, but it is a last resort as there are potentially long-term side effects from its usage, cannot be used outside an ICU due to the need for constant monitoring and is extremely expensive. But when it saves a life, it's wonderful.

ECMO is available at all major hospitals. And yes it is a common way of keeping people alive while this virus runs it course.

I think the important take-away is from Rorah's comment. ECMO is a form of life support. It is not a treatment.

Perhaps I worded it wrong, although I took that from the article. It is for the most seriously ill Covid patients. The treatment doesn't fight the virus itself but provides organ support while the team treats the underlying disease. Of course, the wording is from the author of the article. I'm not sure how medical personnel are referring to it.

Arcy, if you read my post and/or the article you would see that not every major hospital has an ECMO machine. Or at least not one they can dedicate to use for Covid patients. Knoxville has three major hospitals. One is a teaching hospital (the one in the article) and one is a well-known heart hospital. I would think that the heart hospital has an ECMO but it could be that it is used for heart patients only. UT hospital has a heart center which is a separate building from the hospital and there could be a ECMO there, I don't know. But when my friend's SIL needed an ECMO machine, he was life-flighted to Nashville, which is about 3 hours from here. UT will now have 2 ECMO machines which can be used for Covid patients and a third one on stand-by.

I can't remember how long B was on the ECMO, but I know he was off it before he was moved from ICU. He was in the hospital (first here, then Nashville), over 90 days. This was before the vaccines and with his age, he would have been down the line to be vaccinated. I think 2katz hit the nail on the head. That's the kind of thing that makes you want to take precautions to avoid getting the disease.

ECMO machines are NOT available at all major hospitals and require many specialized personnel to monitor and operate. They are generally used as last ditch treatment for Covid patients, and are high risk treatment at that.

Exactly Maddielee! Members of the ECMO team traveled with him on the med-flight. The drs. told his wife had he been older, had health problems, etc. they would not have tried the ECMO. They felt he had a chance at recovery with ECMO. I am so thankful. They are a sweet family and seeing pictures of them at Christmas this year brought tears to my eyes.

Reported cost $318,187. Mean charges ranged from $154,215 to $868,979.

Remember, before ACA/Obamacare, when there were annual/lifetime health insurance benefits.

US sites with ECMO and current status.

mdln, I’m surprised at how low the costs are that you have? ECMO, in my experience, is all hands on deck and the equipment, lab work, and personnel costs are enormous?

Simplified diagram of circuit.

Roles: