Controlled ventilation with intermittent positive-pressure breathing in the management of acute ventilatory failure associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

C ONTROLLED MECHANICAL VENTILATION may be employed for ventilatory support in patients with respiratory failure when assisted ventilation fails . The purpose of controlled ventilation is to reduce patient respiratory control and effort and to substitute adequate artificial ventilation, thereby providing time for appropriate medical therapy . With improvement the patient's own ventilatory effort may be capable of maintaining normal or clinically stable balance . These principles have been adequately demonstrated in acute ventilatory failure with volume-cycled respirators (1, 2). It was the purpose of this prospective study to evaluate in patients with chronic obstructive lung disease, a group usually difficult to manage during acute ventilatory failure, the following : [1] whether conventional pressure-cycled intermittent positive-