[Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO): experience in a neonatal intensive care unit].

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a poorly developed resource in Argentina, is a highly invasive rescue therapy, for critically ill patients with severe respiratory failure with or without associated cardiovascular failure and mortality probability near to 80%. This article reports the experience obtained with first patients treated with ECMO in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Hospital Garrahan at Buenos Aires. From April 2008 to January 2012, 17 patients were treated with veno-arterial ECMO.