Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 16, 2021; 9(8): 1953-1967
Published online Mar 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i8.1953
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for coronavirus disease 2019-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome: Report of two cases and review of the literature
Jun-Lin Wen, Qi-Zhe Sun, Zhou Cheng, Xiao-Zu Liao, Li-Qiang Wang, Yong Yuan, Jian-Wei Li, Liu-Sheng Hou, Wen-Jun Gao, Wei-Jia Wang, Wei-Yan Soh, Bin-Fei Li, Da-Qing Ma
Jun-Lin Wen, Zhou Cheng, Xiao-Zu Liao, Li-Qiang Wang, Bin-Fei Li, Department of Anaesthesiology, Zhongshan People’s Hospital, Zhongshan 528403, Guangdong Province, China
Qi-Zhe Sun, Da-Qing Ma, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London SW10 9NH, United Kingdom
Yong Yuan, Liu-Sheng Hou, Cardiovascular Centre, Zhongshan People's Hospital, Zhongshan 528403, Guangdong Province, China
Jian-Wei Li, Department of Intensive Medicine, Zhongshan People's Hospital, Zhongshan 528403, Guangdong Province, China
Wen-Jun Gao, Department of Hepatology, The Second People’s Hospital of Zhongshan, Zhongshan 528447, Guangdong Province, China
Wei-Jia Wang, Laboratory Diagnosis Centre, Zhongshan People's Hospital, Zhongshan 528403, Guangdong Province, China
Wei-Yan Soh, Faculty of Medicine, Ewcastle University Medicine Malaysia, Johor 79200, Malaysia
Author contributions: Wen JL collected and interpreted the data; Sun QZ drafted the manuscript; Li BF and Yuan Y supervised and coordinated management of the patients; Cheng Z, Liao XZ, and Wang LQ were in charge of the ECMO application and management; Li JW, Gao WJ, Hou LS, and Wang WJ directed the administration of drugs; Li BF, Cheng Z, Liao XZ, Wang LQ, and Yuan Y contributed to design of the study; Ma DQ and Soh WY edited the report for important intellectual content; Li BF is the guarantor of this report; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Zhongshan City Social Welfare Project, No. 2020B1002.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from the patients for publication of this case report and any accompanying images. A copy of the written consent is available on request.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Bin-Fei Li, MD, PhD, Chief Doctor, Department of Anaesthesiology, Zhongshan People's Hospital, No. 2 Sunwen East Road, Zhongshan 528403, Guangdong Province, China. libf@zsph.com
Received: November 4, 2020
Peer-review started: November 4, 2020
First decision: November 23, 2020
Revised: December 23, 2020
Accepted: January 20, 2021
Article in press: January 20, 2021
Published online: March 16, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: We present two cases of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treated by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The first, a full-term pregnant woman, was discharged with child loss but in good health, and the second, an elderly man, remains on ventilation support and may require lung transplantation. ECMO provided sufficient support for these COVID-19 patients with severe respiratory failure; however, both experienced several complications during the ECMO therapy, including right ventricular dysfunction, bleeding, thrombosis, acute renal failure, respiratory muscle weakness, and suspected pulmonary fibrosis. More case studies are needed to determine the optimal ECMO management strategy for COVID-19 patients.