Time to Throw Out the Elephant in the Room

Proper Use of SvO2 in Extracorporeal Life Support

Broman LM, Brewer JM, Lorusso R, Belliato M, Maybauer MO, Broomé M. ASAIO J DOI 10.1097/MAT.0000000000002290

To The Editor: There is an elephant in the “ECLS room.” When new devices for extracorporeal life support (ECLS) are released, despite numerous remarks during last decade to industry representatives, manufacturers’ ignorance, and deliberate use of false terminology in ECLS consoles persist. The abbreviation for mixed venous saturation (SvO2) is falsely used for oxygen saturation of the blood drained to the ECLS circuit even though the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) has defined a sample taken at this site as the premembrane saturation (SpreO2). Indeed, the correct definition of SvO2 is the oxygen saturation in the mix of venous blood returning from all tissues in the body, most accurately sampled from the pulmonary artery in patients without extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Chat GTP3.5 tells you that free of charge (accessed online on May 30, 2024).