ECMO helps COVID-19 patients recover

17 patients have survived lung infection at Apollo Hospitals

A multidisciplinary team of doctors of Apollo Hospitals has demonstrated that Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) therapy helped patients who had severe lung injury due to COVID-19 and could not be helped with ventilator therapy to recover.

Since 2010, the hospital has treated 270 ECMO patients. In ECMO, a patient’s blood is purified and oxygenated through large tubes placed inside large veins (close to the heart) and returned back by means of a pump. This was employed in a variety of situations, including poisoning, trauma and infections such as H1N1, pre and post-transplant patients and most recently, COVID-19, a press release said.

“A total of 23 persons infected during the second wave of COVID-19 were placed on ECMO. Of these, 17 are surviving, which is almost 74%. While 10 were discharged from the hospital, two were off ECMO and are recovering in hospital and four are on ECMO. One of them underwent transplantation. We lost six persons,” said K. Madhankumar, senior consultant, Cardiothoracic and Heart and Lung Transplant Surgeon, Apollo Hospitals.