Covid-19 / Medicine
ECMO and the Treatment of Severe Covid-19
A glimpse into the procedure saving dozens of patients with severe Covid-19
The word bypass carries many meanings in medicine. When a person suffers from heart disease, often doctors harvest a vein from the leg and sutured it around clogged coronary arteries creating a route around the blockage. Similarly, when people with advanced diabetes arrive at dialysis centers, they submit themselves to a process by which blood is diverted away from damaged kidneys into a dialysis machine where it can be separated, and its waste products removed before being returned to the patient’s circulation. Even in utero the fetal cardiovascular system has valves in place to strategically bypass organs that would otherwise act as an oxygen drain, robbing the developing fetus of crucial oxygen from the mother. Ironically, this system of fetal circulation bypasses the very organ in the womb that will one day be the sole source of oxygen in life: the lungs.
The major cause of mortality in Covid-19 results from the symptoms that arise when the lungs are severely damaged. Deep inside the lungs are millions of delicate air sacs where the air is exchanged between the outside environment and the bloodstream. The thin structure of lung air sacs — called alveoli —…
