- General indications for veno-venous (VV) ECMO.
| Indications for VV ECMO for respiratory failure: |
| Consider referring a patient with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) after optimization of all other conventional modalities if the patient has: |
| Severe hypoxic respiratory failure: |
| PaO2/FiO2 ratio <80 for 6 hours |
| PaO2/FiO2 ratio <50 for 3 hours |
| Severe hyper-carbic respiratory failure: |
| pH <7.2 with pCO2 >60 mm Hg for >6 hours.2 |