In Response to Broman et al.: Time to Throw Out the Elephant in the Room: Proper Use of SvO2 in Extracorporeal Life Support

To the Editor: First of all, thank you for your thoughtful comments. We acknowledge the importance of the correct terminology in extracorporeal life support (ECLS). Although we concur that the oxygen saturation in the main pulmonary artery (SpaO2) does not represent the mixed venous saturation (MvO2) in ECLS patients, SpaO2 is the best available representation of the venous saturation in clinical practice. Our work highlights the limitation of relying on premembranous oxygen saturation (SpreO2) in Femoral-Femoral Venous-Arterial Extracorporeal Membranous Oxygenation (Vf-Af ECMO) patients as surrogate for the best available representation of MvO2, which is SpaO2.