Tracheostomy for the critically ill: impact of new technologies:

[Topical respiratory strategies in neurocritical care]

Management of the respiratory tract and maintenance of adequate gas exchange are the basic goals of critical care. Injury to the nervous system is often accompanied by development of respiratory disorders. On the other hand, changes in the gas composition of arterial blood can cause brain damage. In addition, approaches to the patient with respiratory failure, which are used in general critical care and neurocritical care, may differ. The presented literature review is devoted to modern respiratory strategies used in neurocritical care.

Mechanical Ventilation

Mechanical ventilation is the second most frequently performed therapeutic intervention after treatment for cardiac arrhythmias in intensive care units today. Countless lives have been saved with its use despite being associated with a greater than 30% in-hospital mortality rate. As life expectancies increase and people with chronic illnesses survive longer, artificial support with mechanical ventilation is also expected to rise. In one survey, over half of senior internal medicine residents reported their training on mechanical ventilation as inadequate, whereas the majority of critical care nurses reported having received no formal education on its use. Technological advances resulting in the availability of sleeker ventilators with graphic waveform displays and new modes of ventilation have challenged the bedside clinicians to incorporate this new data along with evidenced-based research into their daily practice. A review of current thoughts on mechanical ventilation and weaning is presented.

Twenty Months’ Routine Use of a New Percutaneous Tracheostomy Set Using Controlled Rotating Dilation

After a favorable trial period, we introduced the new percutaneous tracheostomy set, PercuTwist, in February of 2002 for our routine procedures. Over the next 20 mo, 90 procedures were performed with minimal complications. To prospectively evaluate this experience, we collected information on reasons for unit admission, operators' previous experience, the duration of prior tracheal intubation, the time needed for the procedure, the grading of the difficulty, the amount of bleeding, and the complications of the procedure. Twenty-two of 90 (24.4%) procedures were performed by senior consultants with experience; 68 of 90 (75.6%) were safely performed by intensive care residents under close bedside supervision. The mean time needed for the procedure was 13 min 7 s. In only one procedure during the entire study was any difficulty observed during the insertion process. This occurred because the initial skin incision was too small. However, no major bleeding or complications were encountered.

[Percutaneous tracheostomy]

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to evaluate the different techniques of percutaneous tracheostomies, their advantages, drawbacks, complications and to compare them to standard surgical tracheostomies. This study will consider only elective (non emergency) bedside procedures in intensive care units.

DATA SOURCES

Extraction from Medline database of english and french articles on percutaneous tracheostomies and searching along with major review articles.

STUDY SELECTION

The collected articles were selected according to their qualities regarding to their evidence level. In addition to several important or historic references, the literature of the five past years was studied.

DATA EXTRACTION

The articles were reviewed according to their contribution for techniques, perioperative and postoperative complications, recent advances, advantages and drawbacks of all procedures. Publications addressing recent comparisons between surgical and percutaneous tracheostomies were specially studied.

DATA SYNTHESIS

Four techniques of bedside percutaneous tracheostomies are available and marketed, in France: Ciaglia's dilation technique (with multiple or unique dilator), Griggs's technique (using a special designed forceps), and Fantoni's technique (Trans Laryngeal Tracheostomy). The most spred but also first described technique is the Ciaglia's (1985). The most recent articles comparing surgical and percutaneous tracheostomies techniques are not able to demonstrate a superiority of one of them in terms of feasibility or safety. In other words, there should be a slight advantage for the percutaneous tracheostomy regarding to the late post-operative complications, as there should be a slight advantage for the surgical techniques regarding to the perioperative complications. The literature analysis point out firstly the learning curve for percutaneous dilational tracheostomy, with a significant decrease of complication incidence with the operator's experience and secondly the continuous endoscopic guidance seems to increase the safety of the percutaneous procedure.

CONCLUSION

Since there has been a great deal of percutaneous tracheostomy in the intensive care units, the incidence of tracheostomy have increased in those services. There is a trend to replace the surgical procedure by the percutaneous one. However, according to the potentially jeopardizing complications, percutaneous tracheostomy should be done by an experienced operator with the help of a continuous endoscopic guidance.