[Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and hemodynamics : Therapy is not only a friend of the heart].

Extracorporeal support systems for the heart and lungs are employed for cardiac, pulmonary and also cardiopulmonary failure; however, neither the pure lung support by venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (vvECMO) nor the venoarterial (va) ECMO behave in a hemodynamically inert manner with respect to the patient's own cardiovascular system. The success of ECMO treatment is decisively dependent on monitoring before and during the execution and the pathophysiological understanding of the hemodynamic changes that occur during treatment. This article explicitly elucidates these "concomitant phenomena" and discusses fundamental aspects of cardiovascular physiology and the specific interplay with ECMO treatment.