• Curr Opin Crit Care · Feb 2003

    Review

    Usefulness of helium-oxygen mixtures in the treatment of mechanically ventilated patients.

    • Philippe Jolliet and Didier Tassaux.
    • Divisions of Medical Intensive Care and Anesthesiology, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland. jolliet@medecine.unige.ch
    • Curr Opin Crit Care. 2003 Feb 1; 9 (1): 45-50.

    AbstractThe density of helium is markedly lower than that of air or any of its components, leading to a substantial decrease in airway resistance to flow when it is inhaled. In mechanically ventilated patients with obstructive airway disease, replacing the usual air-oxygen mixture with helium-oxygen has been shown to reduce dynamic hyperinflation and intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure; to decrease lung inflation pressures, respiratory acidosis, and work of breathing; and to improve arterial blood gases. Aerosol delivery to distal airways is enhanced with helium-oxygen. Preliminary data also suggest that the use of helium-oxygen could be a valuable approach to decrease postextubation respiratory distress. However, interference with ventilator function and added costs are two major disadvantages of helium-oxygen. Hence, before its widespread use in mechanically ventilated patients can be recommended, studies are needed to determine whether these favorable short-term effects can influence patient outcome.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…