How is the success of ECMO therapy typically measured?

The success of ECMO therapy is primarily measured through patient survival rates and recovery times because these metrics directly reflect the effectiveness of the intervention in improving a patient's health outcomes. Survival rates indicate how many patients lived through or improved sufficiently after receiving ECMO, while recovery times provide insight into the duration of support needed before patients are able to return to their baseline health or achieve significant improvement. These factors are critical in evaluating the viability of ECMO as a life-sustaining intervention, especially in critically ill patients with severe cardiac or respiratory failure. Monitoring these outcomes helps clinicians assess the overall benefit of ECMO and guide future treatment decisions.

In contrast, the economic cost of treatment, the number of procedures performed, and patient satisfaction surveys may provide useful information in other contexts but do not directly measure the clinical success of the ECMO therapy itself. The focus is on tangible clinical outcomes, making survival rates and recovery times the most relevant metrics for success in this scenario.