For 14 years, our doctors have been helping to save lives with ECMO. To date, 500 patients with critical heart or lung failure have been connected to extracorporeal circulation.

So far, VFN doctors have connected five hundred patients with critical heart or lung failure to the extracorporeal circulation. It can be assumed that without this invasive method they would have no chance of surviving. Last year, 65 adults and 7 children were treated with the ECMO method, this year there are more than 50 of them. The Covid-19 pandemic is behind the extreme increase in the number of patients at the ECMO. 

"We have already connected fifty-one patients to ECMO this year, three of them children. Compared to previous years, this is a huge increase. We usually have a similar number in the autumn, and not after three months. With a few exceptions, these are only patients with lung failure in Covid-19, " introduced by prof. MUDr. Jan Bělohlávek, Ph.D., coordinator of the ECMO team of the General Hospital and the 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University, with the fact that last year doctors in the General Hospital connected a total of 72 patients with an average age of 44 years to the extracorporeal circulation. Thirty-one of them were caused by Covid-19.

Patients who are indicated for ECMO have a high risk of death without this intervention. Their hearts or lungs, but often both, are unable to perform their function and do not respond to conventional treatment. Thanks to the highly invasive ECMO method, it is possible to replace both the activity of the heart and the lungs until these organs regain their function or do not approach another treatment solution.

For more information, see press release.