Modern-day ICUs are filled with the latest technological advancements in critical care, some supported with definitive data and some not. Incorporating electrical impedance tomography (EIT) into patient assessment of those being managed with mechanical ventilation is one of the more interesting approaches. EIT allows the clinician to assess lung function in an innovative and exciting way.1,2 This technology transforms raw data obtained from external chest electrodes into a digital image presented on the ventilator and/or an external monitor reflecting changes in gas distribution throughout the lung with each breath. EIT’s noninvasive approach makes it a safe, dynamic, diagnostic tool that can provide cross-sectional views of the lung in a continuous fashion. The image produced by EIT is generally precise and reliable, but an unanswered question is whether it can truly impact clinical care and clinical outcomes in a meaningful way.
In the current issue, van Dijk and colleagues describe the use of EIT to determine the distribution of tidal volume/gas delivery during the recovery phase of pediatric subjects with acute respiratory failure in their article titled “Global and Regional Tidal Volume Distribution in Spontaneously Breathing Mechanically Ventilated Children.”3 In this paper, the authors describe the use of EIT to evaluate and compare tidal volume distribution and end-expiratory lung volume during common weaning approaches to mechanical ventilation: CPAP …
Correspondence: John T Gallagher MPH RRT RRT-NPS FAARC. E-mail: john.gallagher{at}uhhospitals.org
