ABSTRACT
The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation(ECMO) for acute respiratory distress, syndrome was started in Korea from 1990. Until now there were 4 clinical cases in Korea. Three cases were cardiac patients who received the open heart surgery and one was lung contusion patient by a automobile accident. Among them one case survived after 90 hours ECMO and became the first successful ECMO case in Korea and also the first in Asia except Japan. In this case we used new anticoagulant nafamostat mesilate in order to reduce the subcutaneous bleeding. All the oxygenators were membrane type. The last one was the heparin-bonded microporous membrane type which was made for the cardiopulmonary bypass of open heart surgery. The last case showed the possibility of the use of microporous membrane oxygenator for prolonged extracorporeal membrane oxygenation without administration of the anticoagulation. We believe that the ECMO will become popular as a prolonged life supporting method in near future in Korea.
