BACKGROUD: There is no consensus over the effect of V-V ECMO on septic patients with sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy. CASE PRESENTATION: A 48-year-old male was transferred to our emergency department for acute-onset fever lasting for four days on November 1, 2019. He traveled in many places in northern China (Yan’an, Beijing, Qinhuangdao and so on) one month prior to admission. We initiated V-V ECMO on day 2. The patient’s hemodynamics and infection condition improved. After detecting of nasopharyngeal swabs and bronchoalveolar lavage samples, A/H1N1 influenza, influenza B, coronavirus, System Inflammatory Reaction Syndrome (SIRS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and other epidemic disease were ruled out. On the day 22, patient’s pulmonary images findings revealed the recover. He was transferred to a regular room discharged soon. CONCLUSION: The outcome of our patient shows that V-V ECMO may also benefit the patient when managing septic shock and septic cardiomyopathy.

Background: Whether there is also a correlation between viral shedding duration and the clinical course of illness in COVID-19 has not yet been determined. Methods: In this retrospective study, we included 239 adult inpatients (all ≥18 years old) with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from the Wuhan Tongji Hospital (Wuhan, China). Results: Of the subset of 239 patients included in this study, 33 patients died due to COVID-19 and 45 patients demonstrated clinical progression to critical illness. Patients with a long duration of viral RNA shedding as compared to short duration of viral RNA shedding also had significantly lower mortality rates ((9.5% vs. 18.6%, P= 0.04) and a lower rate of progression to critical illness (16.7% vs. 21.2%, P= 0.37). Viral RNA shedding is an independent risk factor for mortality within 28 days of observation (OR 0.94, 95% CI: 0.88-0.99, P= 0.025, by multivariable regression analyses) and increased duration of viral shedding is correlated with a significant survival advantage (P =0.047) and lower risk of progression to critical illness (P =0.029, by Kaplan-Meier analyses). Conclusions: Prolonged viral RNA shedding duration is associated with improved patient prognosis and reduces the risk of progression to critical illness in this subset of COVID-19 patients. Further clinical studies are necessary to determine if a longer duration of viral RNA shedding with COVID-19 is predictive of an overall better patient prognosis and outcome.