Comparison of total resistive work of breathing in two generations of ventilators in an animal model

Spontaneous breathing through an endotracheal tube and ventilator circuit is associated with an increased work of breathing (WOB). Recently, pediatric ventilators have introduced improved features to optimize patient-ventilator interactions. We performed an experiment utilizing an animal model to compare total resistive WOB of two widely used ventilators, the Siemens Servo Ventilator 300 (SV300) with patient-optimized features, such as flow-triggering and rapid response time, and the Siemens 900C (S900C) without those features. A total of 120 experiments of 10 minutes duration each were performed in 6 anesthetized, intubated lambs. In each experiment, the animal was randomized to either pressure support ventilation (PSV) of 5 cm H2O, or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) with 0 cmH2O end expiratory pressure (ZEEP) while supported by the SV300 or the S900C. Each animal was used as its own control. WOB was measured with a Bicore monitoring device as WOB of the animal (WOBp), WOB of the ventilator (WOBv), and the pressure time product (PTP) for each breath during the experiment. Oxygen consumption (Vo2) of the animal was measured using breath-by-breath gas analysis with a customized metabolic monitoring system. A Wilcoxon signed rank sum test was used for analysis. All comparisons between the ventilators for both CPAP and PSV showed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001). WOBp was reduced by 47% during pressure support ventilation (PSV) and by 47% during CPAP when the SV300 was used compared to the S900C. We conclude that WOB is significantly lower in animals ventilated with the SV300 than with the S900C ventilator, and we speculate that ventilators with the features of the SV300 may offer advantages in ventilating pediatric patients.