Combining Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Cardiac Arrest

Discharge from the hospital with good neurological status for patients sustaining cardiac arrest remains an elusive goal. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has been shown to raise the perfusion pressure for vital organs when it is not achieved by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, ECMO does not overcome the inherent structural problem of a blocked coronary artery preventing perfusion of the myocardium beyond the obstruction.

In a nonrandomized, retrospective study from Japan, researchers examined outcomes in 61 patients brought to the hospital by ambulance while still in an arrest state who underwent initiation of ECMO (median time to initiation, 45 minutes) followed by immediate percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) from 20…