Central Airway Obstruction due to Mediastinal Malignant Lymphoma Requiring Venovenous-Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy might be controversial when patients with advanced malignant disease develop heart or lung failure refractory to conventional management. Especially as for the hematological malignancy patients, the induction of ECMO therapy must be considered carefully, since it is often associated with bleeding complications or infectious diseases. Here, we report a case of life-threatening airway obstruction requiring ECMO. The trachea of the patient was narrowed by an anterior mediastinal tumor too highly to ventilate both lungs, so she had to be connected to venovenous-ECMO (VV-ECMO) before pathological examination and radical treatment were planned. During the intensive care with ECMO, she was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma and the chemotherapy was started. The chemotherapy brought such an immediate result that the trachea regained its patency and ECMO was disconnected 9 days after the initiation of the chemotherapy. Then, the patient was able to leave the intensive care unit with no sequelae. Central airway obstruction is a life-threatening situation, in which prompt decisions are essential. On the other hand, if the airway is impaired by hematological malignancy, it might be generally challenging to consider ECMO as a bridge until the chemotherapy takes an effect. The prognosis of hematological malignancy differs according to its subtype or stage, so it may be reasonable to take ECMO therapy into consideration for some population.