• Tommaso Tonetti, Rossana Di Staso, Laura Bambini, Martina Bordini, Rosanna D'Albo, Domenico Nocera, Irene Sbaraini Zernini, Ilaria Turriziani, Luciana Mascia, Paola Rucci, and V Marco Ranieri.
• Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, Via Massarenti, 9, 40138, Bologna, Italy. tommaso.tonetti@unibo.it.
• Crit Care. 2024 Aug 27; 28 (1): 278278.

BackgroundAge as an eligibility criterion for V-V ECMO is widely debated and varies among healthcare institutions. We examined how age relates to mortality in patients undergoing V-V ECMO for ARDS.MethodsSystematic review and meta-regression of clinical studies published between 2015 and June 2024. Studies involving at least 6 ARDS patients treated with V-V ECMO, with specific data on ICU and/or hospital mortality and patient age were included. The search strategy was executed in PubMed, limited to English-language. COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 populations were analyzed separately. Meta-regressions of mortality outcomes on age were performed using gender, BMI, SAPS II, APACHE II, Charlson comorbidity index or SOFA as covariates.ResultsIn non-COVID ARDS, the meta-regression of 173 studies with 56,257 participants showed a significant positive association between mean age and ICU/hospital mortality. In COVID-19 ARDS, a significant relationship between mean age and ICU mortality, but not hospital mortality, was found in 103 studies with 21,255 participants. Sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings, highlighting a linear relationship between age and mortality in both groups. For each additional year of mean age, ICU mortality increased by 1.2% in non-COVID ARDS and 1.9% in COVID ARDS.ConclusionsThe relationship between age and ICU mortality is linear and shows no inflection point. Consequently, no age cut-off can be recommended for determining patient eligibility for V-V ECMO.© 2024. The Author(s).

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