Chalice Medical

Short for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ECMO involves a complex circuit of pumps, tubes, filters and monitors that must be operated by an expert team, to take over for both the heart and lungs. It channels the patient’s blood outside their body in order to add oxygen and remove waste before propelling it back to into the circulation system.

Right now, hundreds of COVID-19 patients in intensive care worldwide are being kept alive using ECMO and the skills of specially trained teams of nurses, respiratory therapists, technicians and doctors.

Meanwhile, experts are tracking in real time how well ECMO works in treating COVID-19. But early indications are that it could offer a last chance at life for a subset of the sickest COVID-19 patients: those who were relatively young and healthy before becoming infected with the novel coronavirus.

Early evidence, based on a rapidly evolving international registry, shows that more than a third of critically ill COVID-19 patients who have completed ECMO treatment survived and left the hospital alive. Without ECMO, most would probably have died.

With more time and data, it will be possible to see if ECMO saves as many people as it did during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009, when 60% of the patients critically ill enough to need ECMO were able to survive the viral infection.

As at now ABBOTT Inc. USA is the distributer to the Centrimag ECMO – Trolly system consisting of CentriMag console MK II and CentriMag & PediVas blood pumps manufactured by Thoratec Switzerland, consequence to a company acquisition process.

While Chalice Medicals UK continue to be the distributor for Paragon PMP Oxygenators & ECMO Tubing Packs along with accessories for the system namely Sechrist Air/Oxygen Mixer & ParaTherm Heater/Cooler