DISCUSSION: This review presents the significant clinical aspects and variables of ventilation management, the potential risks associated with suboptimal ventilation management, and a review of the major recent attempts to improve ventilation in the context of these variables. The unique aspect of this review is a focus on these key elements relevant to engineering new approaches. In particular, the need for ventilation strategies which consider, and directly account for, the significant differences in patient condition, disease etiology, and progression within patients is demonstrated with the subsequent requirement for optimal ventilation strategies to titrate for patient- and time-specific conditions.
CONCLUSION: Engineered, protective lung strategies that can directly account for and manage inter- and intra-patient variability thus offer great potential to improve both individual care, as well as cohort clinical outcomes.
METHOD: The CAE model was trained using 12,170,655 simulated SB flow and normal flow data (NB). The paired SB and NB flow data were simulated using a Gaussian Effort Model (GEM) with 5 basis functions. When the CAE model is given a SB flow input, it is capable of predicting a corresponding NB flow for the SB flow input. The magnitude of SB effort (SBEMag) is then quantified as the difference between the SB and NB flows. The CAE model was used to evaluate the SBEMag of 9 pressure control/ support datasets. Results were validated using a mean squared error (MSE) fitting between clinical and training SB flows.
RESULTS: The CAE model was able to produce NB flows from the clinical SB flows with the median SBEMag of the 9 datasets being 25.39% [IQR: 21.87-25.57%]. The absolute error in SBEMag using MSE validation yields a median of 4.77% [IQR: 3.77-8.56%] amongst the cohort. This shows the ability of the GEM to capture the intrinsic details present in SB flow waveforms. Analysis also shows both intra-patient and inter-patient variability in SBEMag.
CONCLUSION: A Convolutional Autoencoder model was developed with simulated SB and NB flow data and is capable of quantifying the magnitude of patient spontaneous breathing effort. This provides potential application for real-time monitoring of patient respiratory drive for better management of patient-ventilator interaction.
METHODS: The model-based method uses a single-compartment lung model (SCM) to simulate the resultant tidal volume of patient pairs at a set ventilation setting. If both patients meet specified safe ventilation criteria under similar ventilation settings, the actual mechanical ventilator settings for Co-MV are determined via simulation using a double-compartment lung model (DCM). This method allows clinicians to analyse Co-MV in silico, before clinical implementation.
RESULTS: The proposed method demonstrates successful patient matching and MV setting in a model-based simulation as well as good discrimination to avoid mismatched patient pairs. The pairing process is based on model-based, patient-specific respiratory mechanics identified from measured data to provide useful information for guiding care. Specifically, the matching is performed via estimation of MV delivered tidal volume (mL/kg) based on patient-specific respiratory mechanics. This information can provide insights for the clinicians to evaluate the subsequent effects of Co-MV. In addition, it was also found that Co-MV patients with highly restrictive respiratory mechanics and obese patients must be performed with extra care.
CONCLUSION: This approach allows clinicians to analyse patient matching in a virtual environment without patient risk. The approach is tested in simulation, but the results justify the necessary clinical validation in human trials.
METHODS: Ten mechanically ventilated ARDS patients from the Christchurch Hospital Intensive Care Unit were included in this study. Each patient underwent a stepwise PEEP recruitment manoeuvre. Airway pressure and flow data were recorded using a pneumotachometer. Patient-specific respiratory elastance (Ers ) and dynamic functional residual capacity (dFRC) at each PEEP level were calculated and compared. Optimal PEEP for each patient was identified by finding the minima of the PEEP-Ers profile.
RESULTS: Median Ers and dFRC over all patients and PEEP values were 32.2 cmH2O/l [interquartile range (IQR) 25.0-45.9] and 0.42 l [IQR 0.11-0.87]. These wide ranges reflect patient heterogeneity and variable response to PEEP. The level of PEEP associated with minimum Ers corresponds to a high change of functional residual capacity, representing the balance between recruitment and minimizing the risk of overdistension.
CONCLUSIONS: Monitoring patient-specific Ers can provide clinical insight to patient-specific condition and response to PEEP settings. The level of PEEP associated with minimum-Ers can be identified for each patient using a stepwise PEEP recruitment manoeuvre. This 'minimum elastance PEEP' may represent a patient-specific optimal setting during mechanical ventilation.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12611001179921.
METHODS: Gaussian effort model (GEM) is a derivative of the single-compartment model with basis function. GEM model uses a linear combination of basis functions to model the nonlinear pressure waveform of spontaneous breathing patients. The GEM model estimates respiratory mechanics such as Elastance and Resistance along with the magnitudes of basis functions, which accounts for patient inspiratory effort.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The GEM model was tested using both simulated data and a retrospective observational clinical trial patient data. GEM model fitting to the original airway pressure waveform is better than any existing models when reverse triggering asynchrony is present. The fitting error of GEM model was less than 10% for both simulated data and clinical trial patient data.
CONCLUSION: GEM can capture the respiratory mechanics in the presence of patient effect in volume control ventilation mode and also can be used to assess patient-ventilator interaction. This model determines basis functions magnitudes, which can be used to simulate any waveform of patient effort pressure for future studies. The estimation of parameter identification GEM model can further be improved by constraining the parameters within a physiologically plausible range during least-square nonlinear regression.
METHODS: An iterative airway pressure reconstruction (IPR) method is used to reconstruct asynchronous airway pressure waveforms to better match passive breathing airway waveforms using a single compartment model. The reconstructed pressure enables estimation of respiratory mechanics of airway pressure waveform essentially free from asynchrony. Reconstruction enables real-time breath-to-breath monitoring and quantification of the magnitude of the asynchrony (MAsyn).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Over 100,000 breathing cycles from MV patients with known asynchronous breathing were analyzed. The IPR was able to reconstruct different types of asynchronous breathing. The resulting respiratory mechanics estimated using pressure reconstruction were more consistent with smaller interquartile range (IQR) compared to respiratory mechanics estimated using asynchronous pressure. Comparing reconstructed pressure with asynchronous pressure waveforms quantifies the magnitude of asynchronous breathing, which has a median value MAsyn for the entire dataset of 3.8%.
CONCLUSION: The iterative pressure reconstruction method is capable of identifying asynchronous breaths and improving respiratory mechanics estimation consistency compared to conventional model-based methods. It provides an opportunity to automate real-time quantification of asynchronous breathing frequency and magnitude that was previously limited to invasively method only.
METHODS: Two stochastic models (SM2 and SM3) were developed using retrospective patient respiratory elastance (Ers) from two clinical cohorts which were averaged over time intervals of 10 and 30 min respectively. A stochastic model from a previous study (SM1) was used to benchmark performance. The stochastic models were clinically validated on an independent retrospective clinical cohort of 14 patients. Differences in predictive ability were evaluated using the difference in percentile lines and cumulative distribution density (CDD) curves.
RESULTS: Clinical validation shows all three models captured more than 98% (median) of future Ers data within the 5th - 95th percentile range. Comparisons of stochastic model percentile lines reported a maximum mean absolute percentage difference of 5.2%. The absolute differences of CDD curves were less than 0.25 in the ranges of 5
METHODS: A stochastic model of Ers is integrated into the VENT protocol from previous works to develop the SiVENT protocol, to account for both intra- and inter-patient variability. A cohort of 20 virtual MV patients based on retrospective patient data are used to validate the performance of this method for volume-controlled (VC) ventilation. A performance evaluation was conducted where the SiVENT and VENT protocols were implemented in 1080 instances each to compare the two protocols and evaluate the difference in reduction of possible MV settings achieved by each.
RESULTS: From an initial number of 189,000 possible MV setting combinations, the VENT protocol reduced this number to a median of 10,612, achieving a reduction of 94.4% across the cohort. With the integration of the stochastic model component, the SiVENT protocol reduced this number from 189,000 to a median of 9329, achieving a reduction of 95.1% across the cohort. The SiVENT protocol reduces the number of possible combinations provided to the user by more than 1000 combinations as compared to the VENT protocol.
CONCLUSIONS: Adding a stochastic model component into a model-based approach to selecting MV settings improves the ability of a decision support system to recommend patient-specific MV settings. It specifically considers inter- and intra-patient variability in respiratory elastance and eliminates potentially harmful settings based on clinically recommended pressure thresholds. Clinical input and local protocols can further reduce the number of safe setting combinations. The results for the SiVENT protocol justify further investigation of its prediction accuracy and clinical validation trials.