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KEY POINTS
Type I respiratory failure (RF), characterized by severe oxygen-refractory hypoxemia, is caused by a portion of the total pulmonary blood flow traversing the lung without picking up oxygen due to airspace filling.
When blood transport of oxygen is inadequate, treatment includes optimizing cardiac output, hemoglobin concentration, arterial saturation, and lowering oxygen consumption.
Optimizing does not mean maximizing, and the end point of each therapeutic approach is the least intervention achieving the goal of that treatment and needs to be individualized.
Type II RF is characterized by alveolar hypoventilation and increased PCO2, caused by loss of CNS drive, impaired neuromuscular competence, excessive dead space, or increased mechanical load.
Type III RF typically occurs in the perioperative period when factors that reduce functional residual capacity combine with causes of increased closing volume to produce progressive atelectasis.
Type IV RF ensues when the circulation fails and resolves when shock is corrected, as long as one of the other types of RF has not supervened.
Liberation from mechanical ventilation is enhanced by identifying and correcting the many factors contributing to increased respiratory load and decreased neuromuscular competence.
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Respiratory failure (RF) is diagnosed when the patient loses the ability to ventilate adequately or to provide sufficient oxygen to the blood and systemic organs. Urgent resuscitation of the patient requires airway control, ventilator management, and stabilization of the circulation, while effective ongoing care for the patient with RF necessitates a differential diagnosis and therapeutic plan derived from an informed clinical and laboratory examination supplemented by the results of special ICU interventions. Recent advances in ICU management and monitoring technology facilitate early detection of the pathophysiology of vital functions, with the potential for prevention and early titration of therapy for the patient’s continual improvement. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an informed, practical approach to integrating established concepts of pathophysiology with conventional clinical skills. This chapter does not provide a course in pulmonary physiology nor a comprehensive review of how to treat RF. Rather, it attempts to provide a conceptual framework of principles useful in approaching the patient with RF, first by discussing an approach to tissue hypoxia and then by describing the mechanisms causing four types of RF, showing how correcting each derangement allows the patient to resume spontaneous breathing affected by respiratory muscles that are not fatigued.
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AN APPROACH TO INADEQUATE BLOOD TRANSPORT OF OXYGEN
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Randomized controlled trials have confirmed the importance of aggressive early resuscitation in the face of inadequate oxygen delivery (shock).1 Measurement of and in critically ill subjects prior to initial resuscitation demonstrates increase in in response to augmentation of severely reduced , indicating that dependence on oxygen supply plays a role in ...