Analysis of Endotoxin Activity in Patients With ECMO

Extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) can temporarily help patients gain time to wait for cardiopulmonary recovery or further treatment in patients with cardiopulmonary failure. Whether the blood flow provided by the ECMO can maintain the perfusion of various organs is an important factor affecting survival. Some ECMO patients died after the complication of sepsis. Our previous pilot analysis has recognized several ECMO patients with complicated sepsis has high endotoxin activity level. Endotoxemia can also occur in heart surgery and after cardiopulmonary bypass, trauma, organ transplantation, and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients. These trials used endotoxin activity analysis (EAA, EAATM, Spectral Diagnostics Inc., Canada) to analyze endotoxin activity. In addition, studies have indicated that the combination of procalcitonin (PCT) concentration and EAA activity can improve the accuracy of predicting sepsis. The primary aim of this study is to detect endotoxin activity in patients with ECMO support and compare whether the prognosis was associated with different level of EAA activity. The secondary aims are to analyze the risk factors leading to high EAA activity and investigate the diagnostic value of septic shock combining PCT examination. We suggest that the results of this study may help the ECMO medical team identify patients at high risk for septic shock and conduct adequate managements to improve patient survival and quality of life after survival.