Clinical Relevance of Classification According to Weaning Difficulty

Mechanical ventilation weaning protocol. Daily screening identified patients eligible for weaning. A spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) was considered successful when the patient could breathe spontaneously for 90 min without clinical intolerance. With those patients the physicians were then asked to approve discontinuation of mechanical ventilation. If the SBT was not tolerated, the patient was returned to their prior ventilator settings and screened again the next day.