STUDY OBJECTIVE To compare the performance of continuous fiberoptic blood gas monitoring with standard, intermittent blood gas sampling in the measurement of arterial and central venous blood gases during marked hemodynamic changes. DESIGN Prospective, consecutive, enrollment, experimental study. SETTING Research laboratory at a university medical center. PARTICIPANTS Seven anesthetized, ...

BACKGROUND A study was undertaken to determine if arterial blood gas estimation is always necessary in the assessment of patients presenting to hospital with acute severe asthma, or whether oxygen saturation as measured by pulse oximetry is a reliable screening test for predicting those in respiratory failure. METHODS A prospective study was conducted in a specialist respiratory medical unit....

We investigated the effect of small inspiratory resistive loads on the breathing patterns of patients with COPD admitted to the ICU for acute respiratory failure. Patients were in stable clinical condition three days after weaning from the acute-phase ventilation. Healthy nonsmokers served as controls. Breathing patterns were recorded for 20-min periods during unloaded breathing (R0), then with...