Sigh Breaths in Patients With Trauma Receiving Mechanical Ventilation

To the Editor We recently published a study showing that sigh breaths added to usual care of trauma patients receiving ventilation did not significantly increase the primary end point of ventilator-free days. However, the prespecified secondary and post hoc tertiary end points indicated that sighs were safe, shortened time with the ventilator, and may substantially decrease mortality. We linked these findings to the rationale that surfactant needs to be continuously secreted to prevent ventilator-induced lung injury and that stretching the lung is the strongest stimulus for secretion of surfactant from type II pneumocytes.

Source: JAMA - March 12, 2024 Category: General Medicine Source Type: research