Ventilation Therapy; Complications

The proposed A/Z modification of a supraglottic airway (SGA) incorporates an opening in the SGA body that enables access to the endotracheal tube (ETT) through the body of the SGA without the need of using an exchange catheter, thus enabling an ETT to move in the body of the SGA and convert a supraglottic to endotracheal ventilation. In its original form an adaptor made from same material currently used in the endotracheal tubes can make ventilation through the proposed airway device possible in exactly the same manner of a conventional SGA currently used. This adapter also known as the R-piece can be replaced with an ETT. The modification also allows placement of SGA over an existing ETT to convert and endotracheal (ET) to supraglottic (SG) mode of ventilation without the need to use an exchange catheter.

Previous clinical trials in adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) have demonstrated that ventilator management choices can improve Intensive Care Unit (ICU) mortality and shorten time on mechanical ventilation. This study seeks to scale an established Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tool to facilitate dissemination and implementation of evidence-based research in mechanical ventilation of infants and children with pediatric ARDS (PARDS). This will be accomplished by using CDS tools developed and deployed in Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) which are based on the best available pediatric evidence, and are currently being used in an NHLBI funded single center randomized controlled trial (NCT03266016, PI: Khemani). Without CDS, there is significant variability in ventilator management of PARDS patients both between and within Pediatric ICUs (PICUs), but clinicians are willing to accept CDS recommendations. The CDS tool will be deployed in multiple PICUs, targeting enrollment of up to 180 children with PARDS. Study hypotheses: 1. The CDS tool in will be implementable in nearly all participating sites 2. There will be \> 80% compliance with CDS recommendations and 3. The investigators can implement automatic data capture and entry in many of the ICUs Once feasibility of this CDS tool is demonstrated, a multi-center validation study will be designed, which seeks to determine whether the CDS can result in a significant reduction in length of mechanical ventilation (LMV).

Little is known about how lung mechanics are affected during the very early phase after starting mechanical ventilation. Since the conventional method of measuring esophageal pressure is complicated, hard to interpret and expensive, there are no studies on lung mechanics on intensive care patients directly after intubation, during the first hours of ventilator treatment and forward until the ventilator treatment is withdrawn. Published studies have collected data using the standard methods from day 1 to 3 of ventilator treatment for respiratory system mechanics, i.e. the combined mechanics of lung and chest wall. Consequently, information on lung mechanical properties during the first critical hours of ventilator treatment is missing and individualization of ventilator care done on the basis of respiratory system mechanics, which are not representative of lung mechanics on an individual patient basis. We have developed a PEEP-step method based on a change of PEEP up and down in one or two steps, where the change in end-expiratory lung volume ΔEELV) is determined and lung compliance calculated as ΔEELV divided by ΔPEEP (CL = ΔEELV/ΔPEEP). This simple non-invasive method for separating lung and chest wall mechanics provides an opportunity to enhance the knowledge of lung compliance and the transpulmonary pressure. After the two-PEEP-step procedure, the PEEP level where transpulmonary driving pressure is lowest can be calculated for any chosen tidal volume. The aim of the present study in the ICU is to survey lung mechanics from start of mechanical ventilation until extubation and to determine PEEP level with lowest (least injurious) transpulmonary driving pressure during ventilator treatment. The aim of the study during anesthesia in the OR, is to survey lung mechanics in lung healthy and identify patients with lung conditions before anesthesia, which may have an increased risk of postoperative complications.

The communication between the lungs and the brain has drawn a lot of attention recently. Animal studies have shown that the breathing cycle is coupled with brain activity, showing that the greater the volume of air delivered to the lungs via a breathing machine greater the brain activity and also the greater the injury to the brain cells. There is no study in humans that investigates the physiological communication between the volume of air delivered to the lungs and brain activity. This is important because really sick patients receive breathing assistance using breathing machines to keep their oxygen levels within a normal range. Although these machines are life-saving tools, they might result in brain cell injury, leading to cognitive impairment. So, establishing the existence of a physiological communication between the volume of air delivered using these breathing machines and brain activity is the first step to investigating therapies to prevent brain cell injury due to the use of breathing machines to assist breathing.

The most basic modes of mechanical ventilation are volume-controlled ventilation (VCV) and pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV). VCV guarantees a target volume of ventilation using a constant flow, but may lead to high peak airway pressure (Ppeak) during the gas insufflation . In PCV mode, on the other hand,