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Mumbai: COVID-19 patient saved through ECMO therapy

Mumbai sees its first case of ECMO therapy which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation when a 30-year-old man was saved from the coronavirus.

Mumbai: COVID-19 patient saved through ECMO therapy
SHARES

Mumbai sees its first case of ECMO therapy which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation when a 30-year-old man was saved from the coronavirus after being put on the ECMO support for two days.

The ECMO machine is similar to the heart-lung by-pass machine used in open-heart surgery. It pumps and oxygenates a patient's blood outside the body, permitting the heart and the lungs to rest.

When you are connected to an ECMO, blood flows through tubing to an artificial lung in the machine that adds oxygen and takes out carbon dioxide. Then the blood is warmed to body temperature and pumped back into your body. It is meant for any life-threatening illness that keeps the heart or the lungs from functioning properly.

The 30-year-old man was put on an ECMO machine at the Riddhi Vinayak Hospital in Malad. The daily cost of the ECMO is in the range of ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh and remains a major limiting factor for patients due to its exorbitant costs, given that the therapy can stretch up to weeks.

However, as per reports, in Riddhi Vinayak hospital, eight of the ten patients who were put on the therapy eventually succumbed to the disease. While one has survived, another patient is undergoing treatment at the moment. The survival rate of the patients suffering from the coronavirus on ECMO is around 20-25 per cent in India, almost half of the rate in pre-coronavirus times.

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