Pediatric Veno-Arterial Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (VA ECMO) can be a lifesaving technology; however, it is associated with high mortality. A successful VA ECMO course requires attention to multiple aspects of patient care; yet often overlooked are ECMO flow parameters. Early, potentially modifiable, risk factors associated with patient mortality should be scrutinized in patients requiring VA ECMO.

Retrospective single center experience of pediatric patients requiring VA ECMO from January 2021 to October 2023. Laboratory and ECMO flow parameters were extracted from the patients record and analyzed. Risk factors were analyzed using a Cox proportion hazard regression, and a multivariate regression.

There were 45 patients studied. Overall survival was 51%. Upon uncorrected analysis there were no significant differences between the patients who survived and those who died during their hospital admission. Utilizing a Cox proportion hazard regression, platelet count, fibrinogen level, and creatinine level normalized to age within the first 24 hours of a patients ECMO course were significant risk factors for hospital mortality. We did not find that ECMO flow parameters were significantly associated with mortality within the first 24 hours.

Although we did not find a significant difference among ECMO flow parameters in this study, this work highlights that granular ECMO flow data can be incorporated to risk analysis profiles and potential modeling in pediatric VA ECMO. This study demonstrated that when controlling for ECMO flow parameters, kidney dysfunction and clotting regulation are associated with pediatric VA ECMO mortality.