UA Medical Center's traveling team tries to save sickest H1N1 flu patients

[tetano]

The severity of this season?s H1N1 flu has put a local medical team into overdrive.

The team from the University of Arizona Medical Center has placed nine H1N1 flu patients on an external lung called ECMO ? extracorporeal membrane oxygenation ? since December.

They?ve traveled as far as Flagstaff and Cottonwood with one of the hospital?s ECMO machines to treat the patients, who have ranged in age from 34 to 60. The median age of the patients was 40.

Six of the H1N1 patients have lived and three have died, which is actually a good outcome for people who have been on ECMO. The machine is considered a last-ditch attempt to save the life of someone in respiratory distress. The machine doesn?t fix anything. Rather, it buys patients time while ideally their bodies heal themselves, or medication takes effect.

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http://azstarnet.com/news/local/ua-...cle_9f856155-b475-52df-847a-76d49d6a552a.html

 

[tetano]

Re: UA Medical Center's traveling team tries to save sickest H1N1 flu patients

Doctors treat severe H1N1 cases with heart, lung machine


This flu season, the H1N1 virus latched on to the U.S. once again, but a program at the UAMC has been saving lives by bringing out the big guns.

This season, doctors at the University of Arizona Medical Center have placed 10 H1N1 patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, artificial heart and lung machines that gives patients time to heal their failing organs.

What separates the UA?s ECMO program from others is its ability to place patients on ECMO as they are transported back to the UAMC, where there?s the manpower and money to keep them alive.

Eight of the 10 swine flu patients were transported there, said Dr. Yuval Raz, an assistant professor in the UA?s College of Medicine and medical director of the ECMO Services Program.

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http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/arti...eat-severe-h1n1-cases-with-heart-lung-machine