Blood acidification enhances carbon dioxide removal of membrane lung: an experimental study

Purpose Extracorporeal CO2 removal is an effective procedure to allow a protective ventilatory strategy in ARDS patients, but it is technically challenging due to the high blood flow required. Increasing the CO2 transfer through the membrane lung (ML) may lower the demand of extracorporeal blood flow and consequently allow for a wider clinical application of this technique. Since only the dissolved CO2 (5% of the total CO2 content) is easily removed by the ML, we tested whether acidifying the blood entering the ML to convert bicarbonate ions towards dissolved CO2 could enhance the CO2 transfer though the ML.