OBJECTIVES: 

To systematically review and assimilate literature on children receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support in pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS) with the goal of developing an update to the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury Consensus Conference recommendations and statements about clinical practice and research.

DATA SOURCES: 

Electronic searches of MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Elsevier), and CINAHL Complete (EBSCOhost).

STUDY SELECTION: 

The search used a medical subject heading terms and text words to capture studies of ECMO in PARDS or acute respiratory failure. Studies using animal models and case reports were excluded from our review.

DATA EXTRACTION: 

Title/abstract review, full-text review, and data extraction using a standardized data collection form.

DATA SYNTHESIS: 

The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach was used to identify and summarize evidence and develop recommendations. There were 18 studies identified for full-text extraction. When pediatric data was lacking, adult and neonatal data from randomized clinical trials and observational studies were considered. Six clinical recommendations were generated related to ECMO indications, initiation, and management in PARDS. There were three good practice statements generated related to ECMO indications, initiation, and follow-up in PARDS. Two policy statements were generated involving the impact of ECMO team organization and training in PARDS. Last, there was one research statement.

CONCLUSIONS: 

Based on a systematic literature review, we propose clinical management, good practice and policy statements within the domains of ECMO indications, initiation, team organization, team training, management, and follow-up as they relate to PARDS.