Time Is Your Best Friend, but It Soon Becomes Your Worst Enemy: The Conflict of Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation in Cardiac Surgery

A brief, readable, sensibly balanced, and well-referenced editorial on the occasion of the retrospective Austrian paper on venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Taken in the context of the recent New England Journal of Medicine paper on venovenous ECMO for acute respiratory distress syndrome and the relevant ATS presentations on the EOLIA trial, the editorial raises questions on the utility of the expensive innovation of ECMO.