Gas Exchange during Coventional and High-Frequency Ventilation

Abstract

This chapter will highlight some important issues concerning pulmonary gas exchange during both conventional and high-frequency oscillatory ventilation. The data upon which the text is based come from the literature as well as from the author’s own laboratory. In a presentation of this length, a full treatment of gas exhange is clearly infeasible, and thus only selected topics are discussed. These have been chosen because of their clinical importance. In some cases, these topics represent concepts that are well established in the physiological literature, but not generally applied in the clinical care of the patient. In others, the ideas are more recent, of great interest, but not yet completely resolved (especially the issues concerning gas exchange during high-frequency ventilation). They are presented to stimulate thought and discussion of possible approaches to solving these problems. The ideas presented in these cases are clearly speculative, but may suggest possible clarifying studies. Table 1 lists the issues that will be discussed.