Summary
ECMO post cardiac surgery can have detrimental benefit on survival
outcomes. There is a survival rate of 30.8% for patients who underwent
ECMO for PCCS, where without ECMO salvage PCCS is inevitably a fatal
state for patients. From an ethical viewpoint, one should also consider
the possibility of ECMO in prolonging patient’s hospital stay without
significant improvement or addition to prognostic benefit and therefore
careful patient selection should be made through inter-speciality
discussions. The patient’s best interests should always be considered
before initiating any medical intervention with the risks and benefits
being weighed out judiciously for each case. Liaising with colleagues
will help professionals come to an appropriate decision to prolong life
with ECMO or to prevent futile attempts. Risk stratification could also
be conducted to determine if prophylactic ECMO would be suitable for use
in high-risk patients to help improve survival rates.