Nearly 90 per cent of Covid-19 patients who qualified for, but did not receive, ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) due to a shortage of resources during the height of the pandemic died in the hospital, despite being young with few other health issues, says a new study.

The study indicated that approximately 90 per cent of patients for whom health system capacity to provide ECMO was unavailable died in the hospital, compared to 43 per cent mortality for patients who received ECMO, despite both groups having young age and limited comorbidities.

"Even when saving ECMO for the youngest, healthiest and sickest patients, we could only provide it to a fraction of patients who qualified for it," said researcher Whitney Gannon from Vanderbilt University.

"I hope these data encourage hospitals and federal authorities to invest in the capacity to provide ECMO to more patients," Gannon added.

For the study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the team analyzed the total number of patients referred for ECMO in one referral region between January 1, 2021, to August 31, 2021.

Once a patient was determined to be medically eligible to receive ECMO, a separate assessment was performed of the health system's resources to provide ECMO.

Among 240 patients with Covid-19 referred for ECMO, 90 patients (37.5 per cent) were determined to be medically eligible to receive ECMO and were included in the study. The median age was 40 years and 25 (27.8 percent) were female.

For 35 patients (38.9 per cent), the health system capacity to provide ECMO at a specialized center was available; for 55 patients (61.1 per cent), the health system capacity to provide ECMO at a specialized center was unavailable.

Death before hospital discharge occurred in 15 of the 35 patients (42.9 per cent) who received ECMO, compared with 49 of the 55 patients (89.1 per cent) who did not receive ECMO.