Oxygen delivery rate and sufficiency of oxygenation during ECMO in newborn baboons

Minimum acceptable O2 delivery (DO2) during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) remains to be defined in a newborn primate model. The right atrium, carotid artery, and femoral artery were cannulated, and the ductus arteriosus, aorta, and pulmonary artery ligated in neonatal baboons (Papio cynocephalus) under a combination of ketamine, diazepam, and pancuronium. The internal jugular vein was also cannulated retrograde to the level of the occipital ridge. We measured hemoglobin, pH, arterial and venous PO2 (both from the pump circuit and from the cerebral venous site), serum lactate and bicarbonate concentrations, and pump flow, and we calculated hemoglobin saturations, (DO2), O2 consumption (VO2), systemic O2 extraction, and cerebral O2 extraction. Six baboons were studied during each of two phases of the experiment. In the first, flow rates were varied sequentially from 200 to 50 ml.kg-1.min-1 with saturation maximized. In the second, flow was maintained at 200 ml.kg-1.min-1 and saturation was reduced sequentially from 100 to 38%. VO2 fell significantly below baseline at a flow rate of 50 ml.kg-1.min-1 and a DO2 of 8 +/- 2 (SE) ml.kg-1.min-1 in phase 1 and at DO2 of 12 +/- 5 in phase 2. Both systemic and cerebral O2 extraction rose significantly at a flow of 100 ml.kg-1.min-1 and DO2 of 17 +/- 4 ml.kg-1.min-1 in phase 1, whereas neither rose with decreasing DO2 in phase 2. In fact, cerebral extraction fell significantly DO2 of 16 +/- 6 ml.kg-1.min-1.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)