Patient population
We enrolled all patients admitted to the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) at the Cardiology Institute of La Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital (Paris, France) between January 2016 and December 2019. The main inclusion criterion was the presence of mechanical circulatory support with VA-ECMO in the setting of cardiovascular surgery. We excluded patients who were less than 18 years old, those who had other types of mechanical circulatory support, those who had ECMO in a non-surgical context, and those who started ECMO support before surgery.