This special issue entitled “Machines that save lives” provides a state-of-the-art update by the most renowned world experts on extracorporeal organ support (ECOS) machines and monitoring devices used to treat patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of intensive care medicine. In 1952, a devastating polio epidemic arose in Copenhagen (Denmark), which resulted in thousands of patients requiring artificial ventilation for severe respiratory failure. At that time, the iron lung that used negative pressure was the only treatment to provide respiratory support to paralyzed people with poliovirus. However, only one machine was available in Copenhagen, while the hospital admitted dozens of infected people daily. Furthermore, aspiration of saliva or stomach content was frequent under negative pressure ventilation in patients with bulbospinal polio. To overcome these difficulties, Bjorn Ibsen, an anesthesiologist at Blegdam Hospital in Copenhagen, suggested to apply positive pressure ventilation through a tracheostomy to ventilate the lungs and protect the airways. Medical and dental students (> 1500) were employed to provide manual ventilation for weeks to these patients and hundreds of lives were saved. To improve the logistics related to the care of so many patients, it was decided to gather them at a single hospital location. The first ICU was born in Europe. In the following months, machines previously used for short-term anesthesia that delivered positive pressure to the lungs replaced manual ventilation. This was the birth of the concept of “machines that save lives of critically ill patients”.