ECMO

British

abbreviation

extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: a method of life support used to oxygenate the blood in newborn babies with lung failure, using a machine incorporating membranes that are impermeable to blood but permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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ECMO

In the Americas, doctors can help infected people by putting them on a life-support machine known as ECMO, for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which breathes for the patient by oxygenating the blood.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026

Unable to breathe, Rodríguez required two months on ECMO.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 28, 2023

Also known as ECMO, it is a last resort, invasive treatment involving a machine that siphons blood out of the patient, runs it through an oxygenator and pumps it back into the body.

From New York Times ● Oct. 6, 2022

One of our control groups was just the clinical standard, ECMO, in which we just tried to restore the circulation using the animal’s own blood.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 10, 2022

Doctors put Ginger on ECMO, a form of life support reserved for the sickest patients.

From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2022

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023