The use of CT to measure muscle mass in ECMO patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The use of computed tomography to measure skeletal muscle mass in patients receiving ECMO
IRAS ID
208040
Contact name
Nicholas Barrett
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 29 days
Research summary
More patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) are surviving due to improvements in the treatments they receive. However, it is common for these patients to develop weakness after being on the ICU. This weakness can last for a long time, sometimes years after leaving the ICU and it makes it harder for patients to return to their normal lives when they leave hospital.
We know that patients lose a lot of muscle while on an ICU and this contributes to the weakness. Muscle wasting is worse the sicker the patient is and the longer they stay on the ICU. Most of the data available on muscle wasting is for the general ICU patients, however, the use of veno-venous extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for severe respiratory failure (SRF) is increasing and we would like to find out patients on ECMO lose muscle in the same way as other ICU patients. These patients are some of the sickest on the ICU and often have significant rehabilitation needs after they stop ECMO.
As all ECMO patients at our hospital will get an initial CT scan of their chest, abdomen and pelvis, perhaps with follow-up scans. We would like to use these CT scans to measure different muscle groups of the abdomen. We will initially look at whether the amount of muscle the patient has when they start ECMO predicts their outcome and then if patients have had multiple CT scans, we would like to look at how quickly the muscles waste. We hope that the results will help us to guide appropriate treatments in the future.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
17/WA/0166
Date of REC Opinion
8 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion