Zhou Can carefully examined the patient, hoping to find a way to save this man's life.
To be honest, once the lungs are seriously damaged, even using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation may not necessarily save the patient. ECMO is by no means omnipotent; its role is only to temporarily replace the work of the heart and lungs, helping the patient complete respiration and circulation.
It cannot take over heart–lung function for a long time.
Let alone ECMO: even something as simple as putting a patient on a ventilator cannot be done for too long. Otherwise, the body can easily become dependent, and the risk of infection will increase dramatically.
For a patient who has undergone a unilateral pneumonectomy, postoperative lung function is suddenly reduced by 50%, and both the respiratory and circulatory systems have to bear enormous pressure. It's like two people originally lifting a 100-kilo load together, and one suddenly bails; the one left will be worked to death.
