Monitoring of the Adult Patient on Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Table 4

Different sites of VA ECMO arterial cannulation and arterial catheter placement.

Arterial Cannula	Location of mixing	Arterial catheter site	Comments
Right common carotid artery	Aortic arch	Avoid right radial	Right radial blood gases inaccurate due to sampling of immediate downstream arterialized blood
Right axillary artery	Aortic arch	Avoid right radial	Right radial blood gases not reflective of blood to which rest of body is exposed
Left axillary artery	Aortic arch	Avoid left radial	Left radial blood gases not reflective of blood to which rest of body is exposed
Femoral artery	Between aortic root and descending aorta—exact location depends on native cardiac output and magnitude of retrograde flow	Preferred site right radial; Avoid dorsalis pedis of cannulated limb	Right radial cannulation detects upper body hypoxemia (see text)
Aorta	Aortic root	Any