Advanced medical interventions such as Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) has emerged as a crucial lifeline, saving lives in the battle against life-threatening respiratory illnesses, according to doctors here.
Recently, Manipal Hospital in Mysuru treated severe lung infection (H1N1 viral pneumonia) in a 41-year-old woman. A team of doctors including Dr. Upendra Shenoy, consultant – Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Dr. Lakshmi Narasimhan, consultant – Pulmonologist, Dr. Mahadev K, consultant – ICU and Critical Care, and Dr. Keshavamurthy C.B., consultant – Interventional Cardiology, carried out the treatment.
At a press conference here on Tuesday, Dr. Shenoy said “ECMO is a complex system that needs the collective efforts of a skilled team of doctors - intensive care (Intensivists), pulmonology, cardiology, cardiac surgery - and an efficient support team in terms of technicians and trained nurses. It is the cardiac surgeons who put the patient on the heart-lung machine. From there on, it is the perfusionist and the intensivist who monitor the case under close supervision of the pulmonologist.”
