Active clinical trials for "Respiratory Insufficiency"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Non invasive ventilation (NIV) usually presents air leaks that may determine the result of this treatment. The clinical usefulness of analyzing (and quantifying) these leaks during the adaptation period to NIV has not been evaluated in prospective clinical studies as a predictive data of treatment effectiveness. Our hypothesis is that air leaks are correlated to a successful adaptation to NIV. And air leak magnitude may predict early failures of this treatment. And also, as we do not know if air leaks change during the adaptation period to NIV, we do not know whether early detection of air leaks plays a role in the therapeutic outcome. Our objective is to evaluate the clinical usefulness of quantifying air leaks during the adaptation period to NIV as a predictor of effectiveness of this treatment. We also want to evaluate the correlation between air leaks and clinical-functional patients' profile, and the ventilatory parameters selected and to evaluate air leaks variability during the adaptation period to NIV. Method: We will determine the air leak magnitude in twenty patients during adaptation to NIV. We will use VPAP III ventilators (ResMed, Australia), commercial nasal masks (Mirage o Ultra Mirage) and VPAP III/ResLinkTM (ResMed, North Ryde, Australia), a device that includes a monitoring system coupled with the VPAP III ventilator. This device allows to record air leaks and other ventilation parameters. We will perform four VPAP III/ResLinkTM recordings in each patient (the last night in hospital during the adaptation period, the first night at home, and one and two months later, after the initiation of NIV treatment). We will also perform a complete pulmonary function test, quality-of-life questionnaire (SF36), and a tolerance to NIV questionnaire in all patients at the onset of NIV treatment and two months later. We will evaluate which patients will need to change treatment at the end of the adaptation period to NIV. We also will analyze and compare air leaks magnitude in each of the four recordings stated above.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance, the tolerability and the efficacy on gas-exchange of different CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) systems.

Spinal Administration of opioids offers segmental analgesia, but has side effects including pruritus, nausea and vomiting, urinary retention, hypotension, and respiratory depression, both early and delayed. Many Centres in the UK now routinely use supplementation of spinal anaesthesia from bupivacaine with intrathecal fentanyl or diamorphine. If Fentanyl is used, this is usually accompanied by connection to a i.v. Morphine patient-controlled analgesia (PCA)-device in the postoperative period, whereas the use of intrathecal diamorphine seems to result in a reduction in post-operative morphine requirements, which has obviated the need for PCA devices in many centres. There has been recent controversy over which opioid is safer to use with regards to the risk of respiratory depression.1,2 The investigators want to investigate, whether intrathecal diamorphine causes less or more post-operative respiratory depression in healthy mothers undergoing elective caesarean section than intrathecal fentanyl plus post-operative morphine PCA.

Endotracheal intubation is a frequent procedure performed in neonates with respiratory distress. Clinicians use different methods to estimate the intubation insertion depth. In this study, the investigators aimed to compare the two different methods (kilogram + 6 cm and nasal septum-tragus length (NTL) + 1 cm) used to determine the endotracheal intubation insertion depth.