Hospitals helping COVID-19 patients fight for their lives have been relying on an oxygen delivery system that hasn't really become a household name yet.
It’s called Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation — or ECMO.
Dr. Ryan Kennedy, the Associate Director at OU Health's Trauma Intensive Care Unit and the Co-Director for the Adult ECMO Service, explained how the treatment works during a Healthier Oklahoma Coalition briefing on Tuesday.
"We actually take the blood outside the patient's body and run it through a machine — not unlike a dialysis machine — that actually provides oxygen to the blood cells, so that they can then go back through another tube into the patient's usually neck or another large vein, and be delivered to the heart, to then be pumped to the rest of the body," Kennedy said.
In addition to bypassing the lungs and infusing the blood directly with oxygen, the technology also removes harmful carbon dioxide from the blood stream.
But Kennedy said this doesn’t help the patients' lungs directly. It simply buys them time to recover.
ECMO has been called "the last line of defense for many COVID patients" and "the most aggressive form of life support available."
