| Abstract: | It has been documented that in some patients with acute hypoxic respiratory failure the application of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) may produce no improvement or even a deterioration of pulmonary oxygenation due to an increase in ventilation-perfusion mismatching. Fluctuating PEEP (F-PEEP) is a newly developed PEEP in which end-expiratory pressure (EEP) is periodically changed within a certain range. In a dog model with localized lung injury induced by the aspiration of non-heparinized blood (2 ml.kg body weight-1), F-PEEP in which the EEP was periodically changed from 0.5 to 1.5 kPa at frequencies of 10 min, and conventional PEEP with 3 different fixed EEPs, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 kPa (C-PEEP0.5, C-PEEP1.0 and C-PEEP1.5) were each applied for 60 min. F-PEEP produced a periodical change in PaO2 and hemodynamic variables including cardiac output, and in comparison with C-PEEP0.5, C-PEEP1.0 and C-PEEP1.5, a significantly greater improvement of A-aDO2 and dynamic compliance with relatively large cardiac output in the low EEP phase. These results suggest that F-PEEP is a useful mode of artificial ventilation for treating some kinds of acute hypoxic respiratory failure due to increased ventilation-perfusion mismatching. |
