Qatar welcomes the Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation South and West Asia Chapter 2017 Conference

Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) is saving an increasing number of lives worldwide, 1 so it is a great pleasure to welcome for the first time in Qatar the South and West Asia Chapter (SWAC) of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organisation (ELSO). The conference organizing and scientific committees have worked tirelessly under the leadership of Dr Ibrahim Fawzy Hassan (2017 Conference Chair) to make ELSO SWAC 2017 an enriching event that will help progress ECLS in the region. For this special occasion, the SWAC ELSO 2017 submission editorial team (AAH, AS, GA, CC, TM) is pleased to have been able to publish all accepted abstracts in this special issue of the Qatar Medical Journal (QMJ) as a legacy of everyone's efforts and commitment to contribute to saving lives. The vast majority of the abstracts are invited contributions from selected clinicians who are bringing specific knowledge and expertise to the conference and to the pre-conference workshops. The submissions received as part of the call for abstracts are presented at the end of this QMJ issue and been presented either as short oral or poster presentations during the conference. All submissions have been subjected to a rigorous peer review process involving a team of reviewers with a range of subject expertise and to whom we are grateful. Overall, this QMJ special issue represents the scientific contributions from over 150 authors from 17 countries.