Editorial: Improving Extracorporeal Life Support Outcomes in Children

Extracorporeal life support (ECLS, also known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO) emerged in the 1970s as a potentially useful life-support therapy for refractory cardiac or respiratory failure in neonatal and pediatric patients (1–3). Following a successful randomized controlled trial of ECLS in neonatal respiratory failure in the mid-1990s (4, 5), ECLS became a standard of care in neonatal and pediatric intensive care medicine.

In order to continue refining the use of ECLS in pediatrics, there have to be sustained efforts on improving long-term outcomes after ECLS and reducing complications. This may be best achieved by a multipronged strategy at the institutional level coupled to collaborative multicenter research, use of innovative clinical strategies, and use of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) Registry and other databases to guide decision making.

In this collection of articles commissioned by the Journal, we collectively explore strategies to improve long term outcomes after ECLS and outline methods for future research and innovation in the field of pediatric and neonatal ECLS.