On November 8, 2021, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi 'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) announced that the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system, jointly developed by our hospital, National Biomedical Materials Engineering Technology Research Center of Sichuan University and School of Mechanical Engineering of XJTU, took the lead in entering into the phase of clinical trial in China.

ECMO system can provide continuous extracorporeal breathing and circulation for patients with severe cardiopulmonary failure, and save valuable time for emergent rescue. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, ECMO system has been gradually familiar by the public. However, the core key technologies have been monopolized by foreign countries for a long time, and the equipment and consumables are highly expensive.

Yuan Zuyi, President of Cardiovascular Disease Hospital of our hospital, introduced that the cardiovascular team from our hospital has been engaged in clinical application and relevant research of ECMO for over 20 years, which is one of the first affiliations in China to conduct clinical trial of ECMO system and develop medical devices, such as membrane oxygenator and perfusion line,etc. In 2017, the team cooperated with relevant parties to deliver in-depth design, research and development of long-acting anticoagulation coating, magnetic levitation centrifugal pump, ultrasonic flow probe, program-controlled monitoring system and membrane lung of ECMO equipment.

Professor Zhuang Jian from School of Mechanical Engineering of XJTU, illustrated that before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the research and development team had basically completed the trial production of ECMO centrifugal pump equipment and a full range of consumables, and conducted large animal experiments on anticoagulation coatings. Throughout the research and development of this project, the team has comprehensively compared the advantages and disadvantages of equivalent foreign products, analyzed the problems existing in clinical practice and developed ECMO system catering to clinical requirement in China.

China’s first domesticECMO system developed by this team has been successfully applied in clinical trial, which is expected to significantly lower the sale price of ECMO products in China, promote the application of ECMO technology to primary hospitals and bring more benefits to critically ill patients.