Timing of Prone Positioning During Venovenous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

To assess the association of timing to prone positioning (PP) during venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (V-V ECMO) with the probability of being discharged alive from the ICU at 90 days (primary endpoint) and the improvement of the respiratory system compliance (Cpl,rs). Pooled individual data analysis from five original observational cohort studies. European extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) centers. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients who underwent PP during ECMO. None. Time to PP during V-V ECMO was explored both as a continuous and a categorical variable with Cox proportional hazard models. Three hundred patients were included in the analysis. The longer the time to PP during V-V ECMO, the lower the adjusted probability of alive ICU discharge (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 0.90 for each day increase; 95% CI, 0.87-0.93). Two hundred twenty-three and 77 patients were included in the early PP (≤ 5 d) and late PP (> 5 d) groups, respectively. The cumulative 90-day probability of being discharged alive from the ICU was 61% in the early PP group vs 36% in the late PP group (log-rank test, p