Chest
Clinical Investigations in Critical CareBedside Evaluation of Efficient Airway Humidification During Mechanical Ventilation of the Critically Ill
Section snippets
Patients
All consecutive mechanically ventilated patients were eligible for inclusion in the study. Patients were randomly allocated to ventilation using one of five humidification devices (see below) for a 3-h period, after which they were ventilated with the device normally used in our unit, the Hygrobac-Dar (HD) (Mallinckrodt Medical S.p.A.; Mirandola, Italy). Indications for mechanical ventilation according to Zwillich and coworkers19 were recorded along with the Simplified Acute Physiology Score
Results
A total of 87 clinical measurements and 95 psychrometric measurements were performed on 45 patients. There were 20 measurements for each HME and 15 measurements for the HH. There were no differences between the patients allocated to each of the devices in terms of age, SAPS,20 minute ventilation, tidal volume, or indications for mechanical ventilation19(Table 1).
Discussion
This study shows that simple visual inspection of the amount of moisture in the flex-tube connecting the HME to the endotracheal tube (or the Y-piece to the endotracheal tube when using a HH) provides an accurate estimation of the humidifying performances of the heating and humidifying device used (ie, HME or HH). These findings may be important since recommendations for the use of HMEs in the ICU lack evidence-based guidelines partly because of the few data available on assessment of HME
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2020, Archivos de BronconeumologiaCitation Excerpt :A capacitive hygrometer (HygroPalm, Rotronic AG, Bassersdorf, Switzerland) with a high-performance linear probe (HC2-C05, Rotronic AG, Bassersdorf, Switzerland) was used to measure temperature and relative humidity. This system has a very low dead time and is accurate (humidity range: 0 to 100%, temperature range: −40 to 85 °C), recording an error of 0 °C and no variations over time.11 At the end of each measurement, the tip of the capacitive hygrometer was dried to avoid any possible measurement error.
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2012, Benumof and Hagberg's Airway Management: Third EditionMain Techniques for Evaluating the Performances of Humidification Devices Used for Mechanical Ventilation
2023, Humidification in the Intensive Care Unit: The Essentials
The authors did not receive any financial support from and do not haveany commitment with any of the brands of the humidifying devices testedin this study.