Regional Ventilation During High Flow Nasal Cannula and Conventional Nasal Cannula in Patients With Hypoxia

High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) that uses heated and humidified oxygen was recently introduced for bedside care. It has been shown to be associated with reduced risks of tracheal intubation rates and mortality in adult hypoxic patients.

The mechanisms of the effects of HFNC are thought to be related to the favorable effects of the heated and humidified gas, the high-flow rate used to minimize the entrainment of room air, and an increase in the ventilation efficiency, including the elimination of nasopharyngeal dead space, positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) effects, and improvements in paradoxical abdominal movement. Regarding the effects on lung volume, global ventilation in the lungs increases during HFNC, which is thought to attribute to PEEP effects. However, how regional ventilation is affected during HFNC in comparison with conventional NC remains unknown.

Because PEEP in mechanically ventilated patients improves the regional homogeneity of ventilation, investigators postulated that HFNC via PEEP effects would result in more homogeneous regional distributions in the ventilation changes. Investigators therefore assessed global and regional ventilation in patients with hypoxia receiving care via HFNC using electric impedance tomography and compared these results with conventional nasal cannula.