H.8 Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation and Simultaneous Renal Replacement Therapy

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) is the process of placing large, intra-venous or intra-arterial cannulas to provide oxygen and remove waste gases. This allows a clinician to provide heart, lung, or heart and lung support to patients with failing organs.

ECMO, however, does not provide support for renal replacement therapy, such as dialysis and fluid removal. Both require access to large blood vessels, however, and it is often convenient to utilize the ECMO circuit and vessel access to also provide flow for a renal replacement device. A “bridge” is created with multiple stop cocks across the drainage and return cannulas for ECMO; however, the current systems create a large risk of air entrainment which can lead to stroke, death, and cardiac failure. There is currently no device that prevents this air entrainment; current devices provided by manufacturers create the bridge but continue to risk air into the device and circuit.

Ideally, this project would provide a way of easily creating port access to the blood flow, allowing for renal replacement therapy, but also prevent or mitigate the chance of air entrainment and risk to the patient.