One hundred patients presenting for surgical treatment of fractured neck of femur were allocated to receive either spinal (SAB) or general (GA) anaesthesia. Before operation, the mean PaO2 was 9.04 kPa. There was a significant decrease in PaO2 of 0.68 kPa in GA group at 1 h after operation, while blood-gas values were unchanged in SAB group. Eight patients (15.7%) in GA group and five patients ...

Background: Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPC) are of the major reasons for death. Prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) and delayed extubation are leading to the incidence of more seriously complications. The effect of hyperinflation has not been investigated in control of these complications in patients who have been weaned from mechanical ventilation and are undergoing T-tube suppo...

The positional effect on gas exchange was studied in eight patients who had unilateral pleural fluid without clinical or radiologic evidence of parenchymal lung disease. In all eight patients, PaO2 values were higher when the lung with the pleural fluid was uppermost. The mean PaO2 in this position was 71.9 +/- 9.3 mm Hg (mean +/- SE) compared with 66.7 +/- 8.7 mm Hg in the lateral decubitus po...

STUDY OBJECTIVES We sought to compare arterial oxygen partial pressure (PaO2) relationships between a 15.1% hypoxia inhalation test (HIT) at sea level and a hypobaric chamber exposure equivalent to 2,438 m (8,000 feet) of altitude above sea level in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and healthy subjects. DESIGN Comparison of physiologic variables before and during int...

The normal presentation of a patient with a drug induced methemoglobinemia is a low pulse oximetry (SpO2) reading, usually in the mid 80% range, while having a very high PaO2 on an arterial blood gas (ABG)1. We present a case where the initial ABG showed a very high PaO2 and a metabolic alkalosis while the SpO2 fluctuated (85% 99%). Those findings combined with hemodynamic instability complicat...

Oxygen therapy is a mainstay of critical care medicine, yet its optimal therapeutic use has not been systematically evaluated. A detailed understanding of current practice in oxygen therapy in intensive care is required to enable future interventional studies. We aimed to describe current oxygenation practice in patients requiring ≥48 hours of mechanical ventilation (MV) at an academic tertiary...