PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mohamed Turki
AU  - Michael P Young
AU  - Scott S Wagers
AU  - Jason HT Bates
TI  - Peak Pressures During Manual Ventilation
DP  - 2005 Mar 01
TA  - Respiratory Care
PG  - 340--344
VI  - 50
IP  - 3
4099  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/50/3/340.short
4100  - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/50/3/340.full
AB  - INTRODUCTION: Manual (bag) ventilation sometimes achieves better oxygenation than does a mechanical ventilator. We speculated that clinicians might generate very high airway pressure during manual ventilation (much higher than the pressure delivered by a mechanical ventilator), and that the high airway pressure causes alveolar recruitment and thus improves oxygenation. Such high pressure might injure alveoli in some patients. METHODS: We tested the hypothesis that manual ventilation may involve substantially higher pressure than is delivered by a mechanical ventilator. We asked experienced respiratory therapists to manually ventilate a lung model that was set to represent several typical clinical scenarios. RESULTS: We found that the peak airway pressure generated by the therapists was sometimes in excess of 100 cm H2O. CONCLUSIONS: The high airway pressure during manual ventilation would be considered extreme in the context of conventional mechanical ventilation, which raises questions about whether manual ventilation causes barotrauma.