Alba AC, Foroutan F, Buchan TA, et al. - Researchers assessed mortality following veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (V-A ECMO) across multiple etiologies of cardiogenic shock, by performing this meta-analysis. A total of 306 studies (29,289 patients) were analyzed: 25 post-heart transplant (771 patients), 13 myocarditis (906 patients), 33 decompensated heart failure (3,567 patients), 64 post-cardiotomy (8,231 patients), 10 pulmonary embolism ( 221 patients), 80 acute myocardial infarction (7,774 patients), and 113 post-cardiac arrest (7,814 patients). With moderate certainty on impact estimates, significantly different death estimates were found for several etiologies, not explained by disparities in age and gender across studies. Findings revealed the inadequacy of using an overall estimate of mortality for patients with cardiogenic shock needing V-A ECMO because there exist differential outcomes by etiology.