Survival after prolonged pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support for adenoviral pneumonia

Adenoviral pneumonia can cause significant pulmonary morbidity leading to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) rescue. Reported survival of adenoviral pneumonia requiring ECMO has been poor, and prolonged time on ECMO is associated with increased mortality. We present 2 pediatric cases of adenoviral pneumonia in patients who survived after greater than 30 days on ECMO and review the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry to describe the collective experience of children with viral pneumonia requiring prolonged ECMO. Although survival has improved over the past decade for pediatric adenoviral pneumonia, the ELSO database previously has had no surviving children reported with a primary diagnosis of adenovirus after more than 4 weeks on ECMO. Our experience suggests that there may be use for prolonged ECMO support in children despite severe adenoviral pneumonia.