What is the role of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for hypoxic failure during an influenza pandemic?

摘要

Many of us have participated in the planning for disasters and pandemics at the hospitals where we practice. And for many this has included system level plans for surge capacity. Anesthesiologists and critical care physicians are acutely aware of issues of system capacity in general. The recent experiences with influenza A (H1N1) 2009 globally have caused many of us to think about our system capacity and to do mental experiments imagining different scenarios of demand and supply ratios for critical care capacity. When these ratios are imagined in the extreme, the value of primary prevention quickly becomes paramount.