Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) manages critical cardiac and pulmonary conditions. We hypothesized that ECMO utilization in trauma patients would result in overall favorable outcomes and sought to evaluate the factors leading to survival. We conducted a 10-year retrospective study at our Level One trauma center, including all adolescent and adult patients with traumatic injuries undergoing ECMO. We performed descriptive statistics and univariate analyses comparing survivors and non-survivors. Of the 28 patients who met our inclusion criteria, 42.9% survived. Non-survivors were cannulated on ECMO sooner and had a worse base deficit at time of cannulation. Most survivors discharged home (25%) or to a rehabilitation center (41.7%). High mortality in this population reveals the importance of understanding and following a standard selection criteria when cannulating trauma patients on ECMO. Further investigation is needed to evaluate what makes trauma patients appropriate to be cannulated on ECMO.
Ameen et al. (Tue,) studied this question.