Editorial: Advances in extracorporeal life support in critically ill patients, volume II

Abstract

Editorial on the Research Topic Advances in extracorporeal life support in critically ill patients, volume II Initially used as a salvage strategy for patients with refractory cardiac and/or respiratory failure, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) has grown in popularity since its successful application outside the operating room in the 1970's, and this trend is particularly evident in the current years (1-4). In addition, the number of centers able to provide ECMO support has expanded drastically with evolving technology and simplifying procedures (3). Therefore, the Research Topic of indications, procedures, management, and even transport of ECMO patients will never be out of date.In this Research Topic, we were able to collect volume II of advances in extracorporeal life support in critically ill patients (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/33279/advancesin-extracorporeal-life-support-in-critically-ill-patients-volume-ii). The topic comprises 17 papers in this Research Topic, of which 12 are original researches and five are case reports, encompassing indications, procedure, management and complications of extracorporeal life support.As a salvage therapy, ECMO can be life-saving in numerous clinical scenarios (5,6). In this volume, Xu et al. reported a case of a 14-year-old adolescent male patient with an anomalous left coronary artery originating from the right coronary sinus rescued by VA-ECMO and Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump followed. In addition, ECMO are often used as a supportive technique to perform surgeries in all kinds of emergent conditions (7). Zhang et al. reported a case of a human immunodeficiency virus patient with severe lower tracheal obstruction underwent rigid bronchoscopy, airway tumor resection and Y-type silicone stent with ECMO supported. While Tian et al. (b) reported a case of ECMO allowing AngioJet thrombectomy in a patient with severe multiple trauma and acute massive pulmonary embolism. Nowadays, VA-ECMO is being increasingly performed by the percutaneous technique, usually under ultrasound guidance (8,9). Correspondingly, percutaneous decannulation of VA-ECMO in these patients is thereby receiving growing concerns (9)(10)(11). In this volume, Tian et al. (a) reported a case of successfully decannulation of VA-ECMO with Perclose ProGlide device application and achieved total percutaneous post-closure of femoral arteriotomies. Except for ECMO, this volume also collected a case of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis secondary to NK-type non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Epstein-Barr virus reactivation, which was presented with multiorgan Frontiers in Medicine frontiersin.org