Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation - Weaning and Discontinuing

Weaning and Discontinuing

For patients with respiratory failure, improvements in radiographic appearance, pulmonary compliance, and arterial oxyhemoglobin saturation indicate that the patient may be ready to be taken off of ECMO support. For patients with cardiac failure, enhanced aortic pulsatility correlates with improved left ventricular output and indicates that the patient may be ready to be taken off of ECMO support. Once the decision has been made to discontinue ECMO, the cannulae are removed.