Tag Archives: ECMO

Dear Sirs, We would like to thank Professor Stephen Westaby for his interesting editorial1 on mechanical circulatory support in the setting of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on acute heart failure. He discusses two examples of patients who were not served well by the current commissioning arrangements in place for acute heart failure and longer term ventricular assist device (VAD) destination therapy, and argues compassionately for a widening of access to technologies such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and left VAD (LVAD) to support patients where required. We could not agree more. With

The recent case report by Westaby et al. (see pages 141–3) highlights yet another tragic example of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) in a young person. Despite the best efforts of the medical team managing her, this 20-year-old student died following an episode of idiopathic ventricular fibrillation. Following more than 70 cardioversions and the use of high dose anti-dysrrhythmic therapy, it took over 80 minutes to establish sinus rhythm. Over the subsequent six hours, she became hypotensive, oliguric and acidotic, but her pupils remained reactive to light. However, following the insertion of an intra aortic balloon pump and re-introduction of n