ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation)
Make an Appointment
For the Charlottesville area:
434.243.1000For Northern Virginia:
703.369.5959When your heart or lungs struggle to do their jobs, sometimes traditional treatments can’t help. In these cases, a special machine can give you oxygen and deliver it around your body. This is called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
If you need ECMO, you're in good hands here. UVA Health's adult ECMO team is the only one in Virginia named a Center of Excellence with platinum status from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization. And we've been named a Level 1 trauma center. It means that when you're life is on the line, you can count on us to give you the highest standards of care.
What is ECMO? How Does it Work?
The ECMO machine temporarily replaces the work of your heart and lungs. ECMO doesn’t actually treat or cure the causes of your heart or lung issues. But ECMO can support your body while your healthcare team works to manage and treat your condition.
How it Works
- We connect the machine to your blood system by putting tubes in a large artery and/or vein in your chest, leg, or neck.
- A pump is used to move the blood from your body and through the ECMO system.
- Your blood flows through the system’s artificial lung, which removes carbon dioxide and adds oxygen.
- The pump then returns your blood to your body.
If you need ECMO, you’ll be staying in our thoracic cardiovascular intensive care unit (ICU), with the machine at your bedside.
ECMO Therapy: Pumping for the Heart & Lungs
ECMO is a heart-lung machine for patients with severe heart or respiratory failure. This allows the body to maintain and recover. Nick Teman, MD, explains what to expect if you or a loved one needs ECMO as a treatment option at UVA.
My name is Nick Teman. I�m a cardiac surgeon at the University of Virginia. I�m the medical director of the adult ECMO program, as well as the co-director of the thoracic and cardiovascular intensive care unit. ECMO stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Essentially, it�s a heart-lung machine that we utilize in patients who are developing severe cardiac or respiratory failure. These are patients that have had a massive heart attack, patients that have severe pneumonia, or other conditions that cause their heart or lungs to not be functioning as well as we�d like them to. Essentially, the ECMO machine allows their body to recover while replacing the function of those organs. When a patient requires ECMO at the University of Virginia, their families should expect to see many doctors and specialists who will be involved in helping to take care of their family member. The ECMO team will evaluate the patient and if we decide that the patient is appropriate to utilize ECMO therapy, then we will place them on the ECMO machine. We�ll have an ECMO specialist at their bedside 24 hours a day, watching the machine and helping to take care of the patient. They�ll have dedicated ICU nurses and ICU respiratory therapists that will be helping take care of the patient from a global standpoint, and they�ll have several teams of physicians that will be involved in taking care of the patient. It may initially look a little scary to see several tubes and drains coming out of their loved one transporting the blood, but this is something that we deal with every day, and we will do our best to make sure that you are comfortable as well with what you�re seeing with your loved one. Over the course of several days, hopefully the patient will improve and come off of the ECMO machine, but if not, then we�ll be talking about other treatment options and what the next step is beyond that. Our group of ECMO specialists is well trained and is able to take care of both adults and children, and really, we have a lot of experience at UVA taking care of all different types of patients with different disease processes that require ECMO. We have multiple ECMO specialists in the hospital 24 hours a day, and we�re always available to take care of patients when the need arises.
Why Would I Need ECMO?
You may need an ECMO machine if your:
- Lungs can’t put enough oxygen into your blood
- Lungs can’t remove enough carbon dioxide from your blood
- Heart can’t pump enough blood around your body
You may need ECMO if you have one of these conditions:
- Heart:
- Heart attack
- Pulmonary embolism
- Myocarditis
- Cardiogenic shock
- Heart failure
- Lung:
- Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
- Pneumonia
- Other reversible lung diseases
ECMO can also support you if you:
- Need a left ventricular assist device (LVAD)
- Are waiting for a heart or lung transplant
- In the lead up to or after surgery
- Have suffered trauma or severe sepsis
Refer a Patient
Contact us about transferring a patient needing ECMO to our ICU.