Pressure-flow signatures of central-airway mucus plugging

Crit Care Med. 2006 Jan;34(1):223-6. doi: 10.1097/01.ccm.0000196216.49407.ee.

Abstract

Setting: Medical Intensive Care Unit of Regions Hospital, a University of Minnesota-affiliated teaching hospital.

Patient: Mechanically ventilated woman with status asthmaticus and acute respiratory failure.

Intervention: Observations of airway pressure and flow tracings before and after bronchoscopic inspection and airway lavage.

Main results: Four newly observed signs were recorded that may serve to identify occult central airway mucus plugging in the ventilated asthmatic patient.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Adrenal Cortex Hormones / therapeutic use
  • Adult
  • Airway Obstruction / etiology*
  • Airway Obstruction / physiopathology
  • Airway Obstruction / therapy
  • Airway Resistance / physiology
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / therapeutic use
  • Bronchodilator Agents / therapeutic use
  • Bronchoscopy / methods
  • Combined Modality Therapy
  • Critical Care / methods
  • Critical Illness / therapy
  • Female
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Humans
  • Intensive Care Units
  • Monitoring, Physiologic / instrumentation
  • Mucus*
  • Pressure
  • Pulmonary Gas Exchange
  • Respiration, Artificial / methods*
  • Respiratory Insufficiency / complications
  • Respiratory Insufficiency / diagnosis*
  • Respiratory Insufficiency / therapy*
  • Risk Assessment
  • Status Asthmaticus / complications
  • Status Asthmaticus / diagnosis*
  • Status Asthmaticus / therapy
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed
  • Treatment Outcome

Substances

  • Adrenal Cortex Hormones
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents
  • Bronchodilator Agents