Predicting Mortality for Patients Eligible for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for COVID-19

The number of patients eligible for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has surpassed the supply of this resource-intensive treatment. Many centers have integrated survival projections into allocation algorithms to enhance benefit (2). However, current techniques to predict mortality among ECMO patients were developed from patient cohorts with acute respiratory distress syndrome unrelated to COVID-19 (3, 4), and they may not perform well when used with patient cohorts with COVID-19 (5). It is unknown whether a tool developed from a cohort of COVID-19 patients would show enhanced performance. In order to predict hospital mortality for COVID-19 patients who are being considered for ECMO, we developed and validated a straightforward bedside tool, and we compared its performance to that of the Respiratory ECMO Survival Prediction (RESP)