Evidence-Based Medicine
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Aug 4, 2017; 6(3): 164-171
Published online Aug 4, 2017. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v6.i3.164
Effects of intrapulmonary percussive ventilation on airway mucus clearance: A bench model
Lorena Fernandez-Restrepo, Lauren Shaffer, Bravein Amalakuhan, Marcos I Restrepo, Jay Peters, Ruben Restrepo
Lorena Fernandez-Restrepo, Lauren Shaffer, Bravein Amalakuhan, Marcos I Restrepo, Jay Peters, Ruben Restrepo, Division of Pediatric Critical Care, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, and Department of Respiratory Care, University of Texas Health Science Center and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, TX 78240, United States
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to the literature search, data collection, study design and analysis, manuscript preparation and final review.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have any conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: There is no technical appendix for this manuscript because the study was extensively described within the manuscript itself. The statistical codes and the raw dataset were also included within the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Bravein Amalakuhan, MD, Division of Pediatric Critical Care, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, and Department of Respiratory Care, University of Texas Health Science Center and the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, 7400 Merton Minter Blvd, San Antonio, TX 78240, United States. amalakuhan@uthscsa.edu
Telephone: +1-210-5675792 Fax: +1-210-9493006
Received: May 7, 2017
Peer-review started: May 10, 2017
First decision: May 23, 2017
Revised: June 1, 2017
Accepted: June 30, 2017
Article in press: July 3, 2017
Published online: August 4, 2017
Processing time: 85 Days and 19.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Many respiratory conditions result in increased respiratory secretions and poor clearance, and are associated with poor patient outcomes. Intrapulmonary percussive ventilation (IPV) is an airway clearance technique that has become increasingly used over the last few years, however there is a paucity of data to support its efficacy. Using a simulated bench model, we found that IPV is associated with movement of mucus towards the mouth in the spontaneously breathing patient and thus supporting airway clearance. Interestingly, in patients on mechanical ventilation, IPV mainly displaced mucus distally into the lungs and thus may be harmful in this patient population.