Active clinical trials for "Respiratory Insufficiency"

Endotracheal intubation (ETI) is a potentially life-threatening procedure for critically ill patients and major severe complications such as severe hypoxia, cardiovascular collapse and cardiac arrest are common. Despite the high risk of the procedure, different interventions lack high-quality evidence and the investigators hypothesize that a heterogeneous practice among different centres and geographical areas may be found. The investigators designed a large international observational study aiming at prospectively collecting data on the current impact of ETI-related adverse events and current airway management practice in critically ill patients. Investigators will collect data on all consecutive in-hospital (intensive care unit, emergency department and wards) ETIs performed in adult critically patients.

There is increasing interest in how thoracic (chest) ultrasound might enhance the management of patients with respiratory failure and breathlessness, particularly in the emergency admissions or intensive care setting. Thoracic ultrasound is already used in a number of clinical settings. It is recognised that a number of lung abnormalities can be identified using thoracic ultrasound, such as consolidation (in pneumonia) or peripheral soft tissue lesions (in lung cancer). Furthermore, thoracic ultrasound offers clinicians a non-invasive diagnostic tool that provides immediate feedback and results. Patients with breathlessness and respiratory failure represent a significant proportion of emergency admissions to hospital and commonly require urgent treatment with limited information available to guide the clinician. The range of diseases that present with breathing difficulties is broad (e.g. pneumonia, heart failure, pulmonary embolus) and difficult to differentiate in patients who often have multiple medical problems. This leads to non-specific treatment in the face of diagnostic uncertainty with the associated risks of treatment complications, increased morbidity and mortality, and distress for patients and relatives. It is in the assessment of these patients with acute respiratory failure where thoracic ultrasound might be of greatest benefit and which this research is designed to address. This is a single centre study (Churchill Hospital, Oxford) recruiting 125 participants over an eight month period. The study will test the reliability of a thoracic ultrasound protocol at identifying lung abnormalities in a stable outpatient population with respiratory disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; interstitial lung disease; patients on haemodialysis to replicate acute pulmonary oedema / heart failure). It is hoped the results of this study will inform further research in acutely unwell patients with respiratory failure and breathlessness to see whether thoracic ultrasound can improve diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.

The primary purpose of mechanical ventilation is to sufficiently unload the respiratory muscles and maintain adequate ventilation in spontaneously breathing patients. When the mechanical ventilatory assist is synchronized to the patient's inspiratory effort, both the patient and the mechanical ventilator will contribute to the lung-distending pressure, necessary to overcome inspiratory load and generate the tidal volume (Vt). Unfortunately, conventional modes of mechanical ventilation cannot quantify the impact of the ventilatory assist performed by the ventilator and the patient. Inadequate levels of assist are associated with adverse effects such as development of fatigue or patient-ventilator dissynchrony and diaphragm impairment, and over assist also lead to diaphragm atrophy and weaning delay. The newly introduced neurally adjusted ventilatory assist (NAVA) has made it possible to measure the neural activity of the respiratory centers (expressed by the diaphragm electrical activity, EAdi). EAdi is a validated variable to quantify the neural respiratory drive, little is known about its usefulness to evaluate the contribution of the patient's inspiratory muscle effort relative to that of the mechanical ventilator, which would be of crucial importance to appropriately titrate the level of assist. During NAVA, the patient's efficiency to transform neural effort (EAdi) into Vt, expressed as neuroventilatory efficiency (NVE), may be a useful predictor for determining the contribution of the patient and the ventilator to generate a breath.

Three endotracheal tubes (ETTs) with different surfaces properties will be studied regarding formation and structure of the biofilm formed on those ETTs. Cultures from oropharynx and tracheal secretions as well as pieces of the ETT will be examined. Findings from electron microscopy (EM) and microbiology will be analyzed and compared in respect to the three materials.

Neuromuscular disorders can be associated with swallowing dysfunction secondary to a dysfunction of the airway muscles involved in swallowing. The investigators have shown that respiratory failure may contribute to swallowing dysfunction in patients with neuromuscular respiratory failure. Furthermore, although tracheostomy has been reported as impairing swallowing, the investigators have shown that when a tracheostomy is performed in neuromuscular patients, swallowing improves because it allows the patient to feed while ventilated. The investigators now want to evaluate whether non invasive ventilation may have a beneficial impact on swallowing by making some adjustments to ensure a good synchronisation between ventilation and swallowing. This could allow avoiding the necessity of a tracheostomy or a gastrostomy due to swallowing dysfunction and/or malnutrition in neuromuscular patients. Swallowing improvement under mechanical ventilation depends on improving the synchronisation between the patient and the ventilator during swallowing. For that purpose, the investigators developed a prototype ventilator able to temporarily suspend pressurisation under the patient's control so that when the patient needs to swallow under mechanical ventilation he may do so with an inadequate insufflation of the ventilator. Our objective is to to demonstrate that swallowing is more adapted and easier under nasal noninvasive ventilation than during spontaneous breathing in neuromuscular patients requiring prolonged noninvasive ventilation. In an open monocentric pilot study, the investigators will study 10 neuromuscular patients usually noninvasively ventilated. The patients will be their own control and their swallow will be studied during spontaneous breathing and under ventilation with the adapted ventilator while swallowing boluses of different volumes.

Airway pressures change during fiberoptic bronchoscopy and endotracheal suctioning. In this study pressure changes are examined in a mechanical lung model and in a population of ICU patients on mechanical ventilation.

The purpose of this study is to compare the oxygen consumption and energy expenditure during the spontaneous breathing trial.

This is a multicenter, prospective, randomized, open-label study which compared two ventilation modes: spontaneous NAVA mode and spontaneous breathing with IPS mode (the latter is considered as the reference ventilatory mode) in patients admitted to the ICU for acute respiratory failure and ventilated with an endotracheal tube. NAVA mode allows to minimize patient-ventilator disharmony with acceptable tolerance and to preserve spontaneous ventilation.

Examination of serial muscle ultrasounds and muscle sampling within the population of ICU patients who require mechanical ventilation for acute respiratory failure, will lead to the ability of investigators to link specific baseline comorbidities, drugs, or fluid administrations, to the onset and duration of architectural changes within muscle and correlate ultimately with muscle function. With this study, we will be better able to understand the relationships between the pattern of resolution of the muscle architectural abnormalities within the context of multiple other clinical abnormalities and therapies present and rendered to ICU patients.

Despite the known complications of immobility for ICU patients, compliance to mobility protocols is lacking in many institutions. Significant barriers have been described to compliance to up in chair and weight bearing orders in the ICU. Recent studies indicate that if progressive mobility is performed for acutely ill ICU patients they may have a reduced ICU length of stay, reduced overall hospital length of stay, incur lower hospital costs, and reduce the rate of some medical complications and increase functionality post ICU discharge. The current protocol seeks to understand whether or not the TotalCare® P500 Bed System and the Liko Lift can remove some of the barriers associated with progressive mobility compliance.