Kathmandu. A man in China has miraculously survived after his heart stopped beating for 40 hours. The incident has sparked an online debate about the latest medical technologies that can save lives.
The incident came to light after Lu Xiao, an emergency doctor at the second affiliated hospital of Zhejiang University Medical School, posted this on his social media account. It has 3 million followers.
According to the South China Morning Post, Lu said a 40-year-old man had suffered a heart attack. Despite extensive electrical defibrillation, his heart failed to regain its rhythm. A team of doctors performed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) on the man. As a result, his life was saved even though his heart stopped beating for almost two days.
ECMO is a life-saving machine. It acts like an artificial heart and lungs. It adds oxygen to the blood and removes carbon dioxide from the blood of people whose organs have stopped functioning.
The machine is often used to provide temporary support to heart attack patients and those undergoing heart and lung transplants. Previous reports have shown that the machine saved people hours after a heart attack.
Last year, a 53-year-old woman in China’s Hubei province was resuscitated five hours after her heart stopped. In 2022, the Yancheng No. 1 People’s Hospital in East China’s Jiangsu Province announced that it had used an ECMO machine to resuscitate a 36-year-old woman. His heart had stopped beating for 96 hours.
According to the hospital, the machine can increase the survival rate of heart attack patients by 50 percent from the 1 percent received from traditional CPR. However, long-term ECMO treatment also carries risks. In the case of the 40-year-old, Dr Lu said that blood pumping should be increased to stop the blood clotting. Which can be fatal.
In addition, the medical team needed to maintain a balance between blood clotting and bleeding. Which is a common and dangerous complication of ECMO. This means constant monitoring is necessary and medical staff must have excellent professional skills.
When the man’s heartbeat returned to normal, he survived ECMO treatment for about 10 days. “After 20 days, he almost recovered but was discharged from the hospital,” Lu said. There were no side effects. However, side effects can include stroke, kidney failure, and mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
Lu called the incident a “miracle”. “The patients were lucky,” he said. Every successful treatment is the result of medical advances, the dedication and luck of the doctors and nurses. ’
In China, it costs about 50,000 yuan ($7,000) to install the machine, and then 10,000 yuan per day. Treatment with this machine is usually not covered by medical insurance. –Agency
