Contemporary Use of Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation: Insights from the Multicenter RESCUE Registry.

Background: Venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) is increasingly used as a life-saving therapy for patients with cardiovascular collapse, but identifying patients unlikely to benefit remains a challenge.

Methods And Results: We created the RESCUE registry, a retrospective, observational registry of adult patients treated with VA-ECMO between January 2007 and June 2017 at 3 high-volume centers (Columbia University, Duke University, and Washington University) to describe short-term patient outcomes. In 723 patients treated with VA-ECMO, the most common indications for deployment were postcardiotomy shock (31%), cardiomyopathy (including acute heart failure) (26%), and myocardial infarction (17%).