Paediatric respiratory reviews
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Paediatr Respir Rev · Mar 2003
Review Historical ArticleOxygen monitoring in preterm babies: too high, too low?
A small randomised trial in 1952 showed that excess oxygen use might well be causing a major epidemic of retinal blindness in preterm babies. That single study of just 65 babies was enough to throw doubt on a longstanding treatment strategy of oxygen therapy and highlighted just how powerful a tool the randomised controlled trial could be. ⋯ It is now time the same question was asked of babies less than a month old. This is particularly important in babies of less than 28 weeks' gestation, who currently remain at serious risk of chronic lung disease and permanent retinal damage.
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Paediatr Respir Rev · Mar 2003
ReviewApproaches to the initial respiratory management of preterm neonates.
Newly born preterm infants often require respiratory support. Various approaches have been taken to provide this support, including elective intubation and ventilation, prophylactic surfactant and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Elective intubation and ventilation allow the clinician to take control of the baby's airway and reduce the support as tolerated. ⋯ Many neonatologists, however, advocate a less aggressive approach to the provision of support, which includes the application of early nasal CPAP with intubation and ventilation only if necessary. Avoiding intubation may be effective in minimising ventilator-induced lung injury, but withholding surfactant may be detrimental to the infant. In this paper, we examine the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches that can be taken in providing respiratory support to preterm neonates shortly after birth and examine some strategies that integrate them.
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Mechanical ventilation is a complex therapy with several different parameters which can be altered. In preterm and term infants, more attention has been paid to the levels of peak inspiratory pressure than to the positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). An awareness that lung protection can be conferred by an appropriate level of PEEP has increasingly stimulated a renewed interest in achieving the "best PEEP" strategy. ⋯ Some of this work has been performed in adults with the acute respiratory distress syndrome. In newborns, we are regrettably forced to conclude that there is, for the immediate present, no easy substitute for sensible clinical observations coupled with a judicious and cautious adjustment of PEEP. We anticipate that a more logical application of PEEP with individualisation of therapy, based on a pressure-volume relationship, will in future enable targeted tests of PEEP as a lung-protection strategy.