CPAP Devices for Emergency Prehospital Use: Looking Inside of It—Reply

In reply:

We thank Drs Salturk and Esquinas for their interest and comments on our paper entitled “CPAP devices for emergency prehospital use: a bench study.”¹ We absolutely agree with them that this study only represents a technical basis for clinical studies, which are necessary to make recommendations for clinical use of CPAP devices under different pathophysiological conditions. We also agree that economic aspects are important, but this was beyond the scope of our bench study because the cost of devices may differ depending on the country and agreements between local health authorities and manufacturers. In our hospital, the costs of the Ventumask and EasyVent, Ventukit, and EveCoulisse are very similar, respectively, whereas the Boussignac is the least expensive. However, based on the results of our study, the Boussignac device appears to perform more as a reservoir mask than as a CPAP device because of the low variable end-expiratory pressure, low air-flow outputs, and high unadjustable F_IO2. We concur with Drs Salturk and Esquinas that the impact of bench differences between CPAP devices on clinical outcomes needs to be determined in prospective trials.

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