Other bulletins in this series include:

Breast Surgery

Thursday 28 May 2009

Weaning patients off invasive ventilation

Weaning patients off invasive ventilation. [editorial] BMJ 2009; 338:b728

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/may21_1/b728

At any given time, 30-70% of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) are receiving mechanical ventilatory support; 70-80% of them are rapidly weaned off this support, often within a few days. Weaning is more problematic in the remaining 20-30% of patients, usually because of unfavourable respiratory mechanics, residual disease processes, cardiac dysfunction, respiratory muscle weakness, high secretion volumes, or altered mental status.

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