Early Non-invasive Ventilation and High-flow Nasal Oxygen Therapy for Preventing Delayed Respiratory Failure in Hypoxemic Blunt Chest Trauma Patients.

Plain-language summary

In blunt chest trauma patients without immediate life-threatening conditions, delayed respiratory failure and need for mechanical ventilation may still occur in 12 to 40% of patients, depending on the severity of the trauma, the preexisting conditions and the intensity of initial management. In this context, non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is recommended in hypoxemic chest trauma patients, defined as a PaO2/FiO2 ratio \< 200 mmHg. However, there is a large heterogeneity among studies regarding the severity of injuries, the degree of hypoxemia and the timing of enrollment. The interest of a preventive strategy during the early phase of blunt chest trauma, before the occurrence of respiratory distress or severe hypoxemia, is not formally established in the literature. Moreover, high-flow nasal oxygen therapy (HFNC-O2) appears to be a reliable and better tolerated alternative to conventional oxygen therapy (COT), associated with a significant reduction in intubation rate in hypoxemic patients. Two NIV strategies are compared: 1. In the experimental strategy, NIV is performed after inclusion in patients with moderate hypoxemia, defined by a PaO2/FiO2 ratio \< 300 mmHg. The minimally required duration of NIV was 4 hours per day for at least 2 calendar days. 2. In the control group, patients receive oxygen from nasal cannula or high concentration oxygen mask according to the FiO2 needed to achieve SpO2 \> 92%. NIV is initiated only in patients having PaO2/FiO2 ratio \< 200 mmHg under COT. Investigators hypothesized that an early strategy associating HFNC-O2 and preventive NIV in hypoxemic blunt chest trauma patients may reduce the need for mechanical ventilation compared to the recommended strategy associating COT and late NIV.

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