ECMO Advances Critical Care Practice at the Center for Acute Respiratory Failure

Cara L. Agerstrand, MD

Hundreds of thousands of patients suffer from respiratory failure each year. Some of these patients develop such severe conditions that they require treatment in an ICU or require lung transplantation. In order to help patients breathe while critically ill or awaiting lung transplantation, a ventilator is often needed. However, ventilators can further damage already injured lungs, require high levels of sedation, or increase the incidence of complications during and following treatment. In certain cases, respiratory failure can be so severe a ventilator is not enough. What if there was another way?

What if there was a technology that could support the patient while allowing the lungs to rest, reduce the time spent on a ventilator, and sometimes eliminate the need for the ventilator at all? What if some patients with respiratory failure could be awake and walk around even though their lungs have failed? At NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia’s Center for Acute Respiratory Failure, a recent technology called Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) has offered critical patients new options.

Join us January 16th at 1:00 PM/ET for ECMO Advances Critical Care Practice to chat with Pulmonologist, Cara Agerstrand, MD Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine and Medical ECMO Attending at NYP/Columbia’s Center for Acute Respiratory Failure. Speak to our expert about use of ECMO in the critical care environment.

Dr. Agerstrand will answer your questions live, such as:

• What is ECMO?
• What types of patients can be treated with ECMO?
• What does ECMO treatment entail?
• What are the benefits of using ECMO in the ICU?

To submit a question for Dr. Agerstrand before the show, visit our question submission form or tweet an “@” reply to @columbiasurgery.

Then on January 16th at 1:00 PM/ET log into Columbia Surgery Blog Talk Radio Channel to listen to the show. If you’d like to speak to Dr. Agerstrand live, call 347-539-5189 while we are on the air.

Tagged as: Agerstrand, ECMO