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Do we know if US doctors are making much use of ECMO (machines that put oxygen in blood directly) for COVID patients? I read that the FDA just approved emergenc
by sudosteph 7y ago
Do we know if US doctors are making much use of ECMO (machines that put oxygen in blood directly) for COVID patients? I read that the FDA just approved emergency usage a few days ago, but keep seeing it mentioned in reports from China. If ventilators alone aren't effective, maybe ECMO machines are the piece we really need to be ramping up production on.
- robbiep 7y agoThis isn’t easy - ECMO is in (very) short supply, Australia during swine flu had somewhere around 50 nationally (cf 2000 vents) + you need a cardiothoracic surgeon to put it in + nursing care is even more intense than for ventilator care. You can’t easily scale this and it isn’t without significant downside as well
- glandium 7y agoJapan is said to have tons of ECMO machines. I don't know how often they use them because that doesn't appear in the reports from the ministry of health, but it is worth noting that close to TWO months after people deboarded the Diamond Princess, there are STILL EIGHT of them in ICU, and 48 more still hospitalized, some of which were in ICU at some point.