ECMO as an effective rescue therapeutic for fulminant myocarditis complicated with refractory cardiac arrest

Ya-Ting Li,1,* Li-Fen Yang,1,* Zhuang-Gui Chen,1,* Li Pan,1 Meng-Qi Duan,1 Yan Hu,2 Cheng-bin Zhou,3 Yu-Xiong Guo2 1Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Department of Pediatrics, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 2Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Department of Pediatrics, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, 3Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of South China Structural Heart Disease, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Fulminant myocarditis (FM) is a life-threatening disease in children. With a rapid, progressive course of deterioration, it causes refractory cardiorespiratory failure even with optimal clinical intervention. We present the case of a 9-year-old girl with FM complicated by cardiogenic shock, malignant arrhythmia, and refractory cardiac arrest. She received effective cardiopulmonary resuscitation, therapeutic hypothermia, and other supportive treatments. However, the patient rapidly worsened into pulseless ventricular tachycardia and refractory cardiac arrest. Therefore, we performed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to establish spontaneous circulation after the failure of standard resuscitation measures. The girl recovered with intact cardiac and neurocognitive functions after continued ECMO treatment for 221 hours. Therefore, ECMO is an effective rescue therapeutics for FM, especially when complicated with refractory cardiac arrest. Keywords: cardiac arrest, children, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, fulminant myocarditi