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Breast Surgery

Tuesday, 11 August 2020

Cytokine adsorption in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation



by Marina Rieder, Tobias Wengenmayer, Dawid Staudacher, Daniel Duerschmied and Alexander Supady 

Critical Care volume 24, Article number: 435 (2020) 14 July 2020

The treatment of patients with severe COVID-19 requiring support with veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (vv-ECMO) is particularly challenging from a medical point of view and consumes a tremendous amount of human, physical, and financial resources. Recommendations for initiation of vv-ECMO in COVID-19 are being developed, though under continuous review [12]. However, despite all therapeutic efforts, these critically ill patients have a high mortality rate according to studies published so far [34].
At our hospital, a major referral center for extracorporeal support, we have treated several COVID-19 patients with vv-ECMO. Knowing interleukin-6 (IL-6) as a predictor of negative outcome, some patients received cytokine adsorption using the CytoSorb® adsorber (CytoSorbents Europe, Berlin, Germany) shortly after initiation of ECMO for up to 72 h [5]. Based on experience in septic patients, the adsorber was exchanged every 24 h [6]. Integration of the adsorber in the ECMO circuit was feasible and safe. Preliminary data from eight cases (4 patients receiving ECMO with cytokine adsorption, the remaining 4 received ECMO without cytokine adsorption) shows that cytokine adsorption may result in a more pronounced decrease of IL-6 after initiation of ECMO (Fig. 1)…



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