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Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is an important rescue therapy method for the treatment of severe hypoxic lung injury. In some cases, oxygen saturation and oxygen partial pressure in the arterial blood are low despite ECMO therapy. There are case reports in which patients with such instances of refractory hypoxemia received a second membrane lung, either in series or in parallel, to overcome the hypoxemia. It remains unclear whether the parallel or serial connection is more effective. Therefore, we used an improved version of our full-flow ECMO mock circuit to test this. The measurements were performed under conditions in which the membrane lungs were unable to completely oxygenate the blood. As a result, only the photometric pre- and post-oxygenator saturations, blood flow and hemoglobin concentration were required for the calculation of oxygen transfer rates. The results showed that for a pre-oxygenator saturation of 45% and a total blood flow of 10 L/min, the serial connection of two identical 5 L rated oxygenators is 17% more effective in terms of oxygen transfer than the parallel connection. Although the idea of using a second membrane lung if refractory hypoxia occurs is intriguing from a physiological point of view, due to the invasiveness of the solution, further investigations are needed before this should be used in a wider clinical setting.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has become an important therapeutic approach in the COVID-19 pandemic. The development and research in this field strongly relies on animal models; however, efforts are being made to find alternatives. In this work, we present a new mock circuit for ECMO that allows measurements of the oxygen transfer rate of a membrane lung at full ECMO blood flow. The mock utilizes a large reservoir of heparinized porcine blood to measure the oxygen transfer rate of the membrane lung in a single passage. The oxygen transfer rate is calculated from blood flow, hemoglobin value, venous saturation, and post-membrane arterial oxygen pressure. Before the next measuring sequence, the blood is regenerated to a venous condition with a sweep gas of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The presented mock was applied to investigate the effect of a recirculation loop on the oxygen transfer rate of an ECMO setup. The recirculation loop caused a significant increase in post-membrane arterial oxygen pressure (paO2). The effect was strongest for the highest recirculation flow. This was attributed to a smaller boundary layer on gas fibers due to the increased blood velocity. However, the increase in paO2 did not translate to significant increases in the oxygen transfer rate because of the minor significance of physically dissolved oxygen for gas transfer. In conclusion, our results regarding a new ECMO mock setup demonstrate that recirculation loops can improve ECMO performance, but not enough to be clinically relevant.

Extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal (ECCO2R) is an important technique to treat critical lung diseases such as exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and mild or moderate acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This study applies our previously presented ECCO2R mock circuit to compare the CO2 removal capacity of circular versus parallel-plated membrane lungs at different sweep gas flow rates (0.5, 2, 4, 6 L/min) and blood flow rates (0.3 L/min, 0.9 L/min). For both designs, two low-flow polypropylene membrane lungs (Medos Hilte 1000, Quadrox-i Neonatal) and two mid-flow polymethylpentene membrane lungs (Novalung Minilung, Quadrox-iD Pediatric) were compared. While the parallel-plated Quadrox-iD Pediatric achieved the overall highest CO2 removal rates under medium and high sweep gas flow rates, the two circular membrane lungs performed relatively better at the lowest gas flow rate of 0.5 L/min. The low-flow Hilite 1000, although overall better than the Quadrox i-Neonatal, had the most significant advantage at a gas flow of 0.5 L/min. Moreover, the circular Minilung, despite being significantly less efficient than the Quadrox-iD Pediatric at medium and high sweep gas flow rates, did not show a significantly worse CO2 removal rate at a gas flow of 0.5 L/min but rather a slight advantage. We suggest that circular membrane lungs have an advantage at low sweep gas flow rates due to reduced shunting as a result of their fiber orientation. Efficiency for such low gas flow scenarios might be relevant for possible future portable ECCO2R devices.