"Yes", is the short answer. Every ECMO machine I've ever seen uses a [1] peristaltic pump and, despite the use of tubes coated with anticoagulants and with vari

"Yes", is the short answer. Every ECMO machine I've ever seen uses a [1] peristaltic pump and, despite the use of tubes coated with anticoagulants and with various proprietary bits of chemistry [2] to reduce the size of the inviscid layer and hence shear stresses, the maximum length of time you can spend on them is limited. It's always a downhill battle and typically a "metric shitton" of heparin is infused in order to reduce the risk of thrombus, despite the hemorrhagic risk [3]. All of these things are fine balancing acts but you do not want to be on ECMO for a long time. Similar technologies, such as cardiac LVADs are only licensed in the UK as a bridge to transplant, for example, where a well-defined end-date already exists before putting the patient on them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump [2] https://www.terumo-europe.com/en-emea/products/tubing-set-perfusion-circuit https://www.terumo-europe.com/en-emea/products/tubing-set-pe... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457945/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457945/