INTRODUCTION Approximately 10-40% of all the nosocomial infections are pulmonary, which lead to grave complications. Elderly, debilitated, or critically ill patients are at a high risk. The respiratory care equipments which include ventilators, humidifiers, nebulizers may have been identified as the potential vehicles which cause major nosocomial infections if they are colonized by fungi or bac...

An inhaler adapter has been designed for the characterization of the aerosol clouds from medical aerosol generators such as nebulizers, dry powder inhalers (dpis) and metered dose inhalers (mdis) with laser diffraction technology. The adapter has a pre-separator, for separation of large particles (i.e. carrier crystals) from the aerosol cloud before it is exposed to the laser beam. It also has ...

INTRODUCTION Design differences among pneumatically powered, small-volume nebulizers affect drug disposition (percentage of the dose delivered to the patient, lost to deposition in the equipment, and lost via exhalation to ambient air) and thus affect drug availability and efficacy. OBJECTIVE Evaluate in vitro the dose disposition with 5 nebulizer models, of 3 types (constant-output, breath-e...

Multicentre studies of airway responsiveness (AR) are increasingly important tools in asthma epidemiology. Because comparisons of AR are made between centres it is essential that measurement techniques are accurate and standard. This study investigated the Mefar dosimeter which is currently used in the 35 centre European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) with the next phase currently ...

An in vitro system was used to study the effect of tapping a jet nebuliser on the dose delivered to patients. Using a 2 ml fill, effective drug delivery had ceased by 3 minutes but a further 38% was delivered to the filter by 5 minutes if the chamber was tapped.

The European Respiratory Society (ERS) recognizes that there are an increasing number of national and international guidelines for the management of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other chest diseases. Some of these guidelines recommend nebulizer use in specific circumstances, using either a jet nebulizer or an ultrasonic nebulizer to administer a drug to the airways o...

Iloprost (Ventavis, Bayer Schering Pharma, Germany) is a synthetic prostacyclin that is used in its inhalative form for the therapy of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Long-term therapy can increase exercise capacity and quality of life. The use of modern nebulizers especially designed for the administration of iloprost guarantees the pulmonary deposition of the required doses and systematicall...

The delivery of bronchodilators with metered-dose inhaler (MDI) in mechanically ventilated patients has attracted considerable interest in recent years. This is because the use of the MDI has several advantages over the nebulizer, such as reduced cost, ease of administration, less personnel time, reliability of dosing and a lower risk of contamination. A spacer device is fundamental in order to...