Mortality with ECMO in critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic. A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction and objectives: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes an infectious disease that can present as adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Without an effective drug therapy, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is essential when invasive mechanical ventilation fails in severe cases. Our study carried out a systematic review of the studies published in 2020 to analyze the mortality of patients with ARDS due to SARS-CoV-2 who required ECMO. Methods: A systematic review was conducted on Medline combining keywords on SARS-CoV-2 and ECMO. All studies published during 2020 with positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 treated with ECMO were included, whether observational studies or case series. However, due to the heterogeneity in the methodology of the studies, a proper statistical analysis could not be carried out, which ended up limiting our findings. Results: Our research identified 41 publications during this period including 2007 cases of patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection who required invasive support with ECMO. Among these, 985 (49%) improved clinically and were decannulated or discharged from the hospital, while 660 (32.8%) died despite invasive mechanical support. Only 357 patients (17.7%) still needed ventilation support with ECMO at the time of publication of these studies without describing the final clinical outcome. Conclusions: ECMO therapy could be useful in patients with ARDS due to SARS-CoV-2 according to the recommendations established in the clinical guidelines and based on the availability of financial resources during the pandemic. Conducting a randomized clinical trial comparing the use of ECMO with conventional invasive ventilatory therapy would provide more evidence on this regard and, consequently, more data on the management of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection.