PHOENIX – A Phoenix man is the first in Arizona to survive COVID-19 through a rare form of treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy.
Enes Dedic, 53, was on the brink of death with a ventilator until his doctors at HonorHealth used ECMO as a last resort. Dedic is among the first U.S. COVID-19 patients to survive the disease by using the treatment and is among around 10 worldwide.
ECMO works by helping oxygenate blood outside the body so blood doesn't need to transfer through damaged or filled lungs. Instead, tubes carry blood from the body to an external artificial lung that removes carbon dioxide and adds oxygen, at which point an artificial heart pumps the blood back into the body.
It's a last hope treatment, as the mortality rate on ECMO is around 40% – "extraordinarily high for almost any medical procedure" – according to Dedic's doctors.
After 10 days in a medical coma on ECMO, Dedic woke up responsive and soon was able to FaceTime his wife.
"I can't even express myself," his wife Olivera Dedic said. "I was jumping through the roof when I heard that they woke him up and he's doing better." Dr. Robert Riley, Olivera Dedic and Dr. Anselmo Garcia after the successful treatment of Olivera's husband Enes Dedic. Dr. Robert Riley, Olivera Dedic and Dr. Anselmo Garcia after the successful treatment of Olivera's husband Enes Dedic. Doctor used therapy as a last resort: 'ECMO or death for him'
After returning from travel overseas, Enes Dedic spent a few weeks at home in the Deer Valley area of Phoenix battling fevers, chills, aches and nausea.
He first checked into HonorHealth's Deer Valley Medical Center on March 15 and quickly deteriorated. He was intubated and transferred to the HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center in Phoenix for increased mechanical ventilation.
A team of doctors tried everything to save him, said Dr. Anselmo Garcia, a pulmonologist and critical care physician. Enes Dedic was treated with all the potential drugs used for COVID-19 including hydrochloroquine, azithromycin, Kaletra, Actemra, antibiotics and anti-inflammatories.
#1: Pinguinite To: Ada (#0)
Pinguinite posted on 2020-04-15 12:34:35 Reply Private Reply
#2: Esso To: Pinguinite (#1)
Stay well and stay safe, our beloved 4um shepherd. :)
Esso posted on 2020-04-15 12:55:08 Reply Private Reply
#3: Pinguinite To: Esso (#2)
Problem is this lockdown can't go on forever. When people start starving, the lockdown ends by default. Gov here is also broke and the lockdown cuts off their flow of revenue.
But I'm doing okay. Got plenty of food saved up. Having baked chicken tonight.
Pinguinite posted on 2020-04-15 13:24:46 Reply Private Reply
#4: NeoconsNailed To: Ada (#0)
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/280938-2020-04-15-whistleblower- covid-19-patients-need-oxygen-therapy-not-ventilator.htm
What, none of yaz are hip to Freedom's Phoenix? What's going on here!
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/
NeoconsNailed posted on 2020-04-15 13:39:37 Reply Private Reply
#5: Esso To: Pinguinite (#3)
Glad to hear that.
This panic came towards the end of my once-every-three-month grocery run. The day before the Indiana lockdown (3-24-20) a gal-pal and I went to the grocery store to try to get some stuff, but the cupboard was bare. Looked like something you'd see in the old Soviet Union. Amazing.
I may have to go down into the dungeon and look through my 12+ y/o freeze dried survival stuff soon.
Strange New World.
Esso posted on 2020-04-15 14:08:56 Reply Private Reply
#6: Ada To: NeoconsNailed (#4)
There is a doctor at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn doing the same procedure but only with young patients who are at death's door. You notice the mortality rate on ECMO is around 40% – "extraordinarily high for almost any medical procedure" – according to Dedic's doctors.
Ada posted on 2020-04-15 14:14:54 Reply Private Reply
#7: Ada To: Pinguinite, Horse (#1)
Not quite sure what an artificial lung does but I assume its not like the old polio iron lung.
Gives credence to the theory that Covid 19 is a oxygen deprivation disease.
Ada posted on 2020-04-15 14:17:36 Reply Private Reply
#8: NeoconsNailed To: Ada (#7)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8vklfJNvlA
NeoconsNailed posted on 2020-04-15 15:10:06 Reply Private Reply
#9: Pinguinite To: Ada (#7)
No, that was essentially a negative pressure ventilator, if I understand those correctly. They put the patient into the iron tank with only the head petruding, with a seal around the patients neck. Then by gently adding pressure into the tank, the lungs compress pushing air out of the lungs, then a gently reversal causes lungs to expand, forcing air to be sucked into the lungs.
Maybe they'd be better than the current ventilators that are blamed for damaging lungs. No idea.
By contrast, this new type device actually substitutes for the lung organ, extracting carbon dioxide from the blood and replacing it with oxygen. The blood is then transfused back into the body. In theory, someone could be completely drowned but kept alive this way -- though I would be surprised if such a device could deliver enough oxygen to completely replace the human lung and keep someone with zero lung function alive. I read somewhere that if you took a person's lungs and stretched it out flat, it would cover a tennis court.
Pinguinite posted on 2020-04-15 16:18:30 Reply Private Reply
#10: Ada To: Pinguinite, neoconsnailed, Horse (#9)
Thanks NN.
I saw what the doctor was doing at Maimonides in a video, and its not an artificial lung.
ECMO works like a heart lung bypass machine
Ada posted on 2020-04-15 19:51:52 Reply Private Reply