Susceptibility for Entrainment: Role of Ventilator Settings on the Occurrence of Reverse Triggering and Its Physiological Consequences - the SEVeRe Study

Background: Reverse triggering (RT) is a frequent phenomenon observed in sedated patients under a mechanical ventilation mode called assist-control ventilation. RT is when the ventilator would trigger the patient's respiratory effort instead of the correct order of the patient's respiratory effort triggering the ventilator. Reverse triggering can have negative consequences (loss of protective lung ventilation, and causing double breaths - with the ventilator giving two consecutive breaths and not allowing the patient to exhale) but also offer some protective effects (avoid diaphragm disuse atrophy). The balance of its negative vs positive effects depends on its frequency and magnitude of its associated respiratory effort. Respiratory entrainment is the most often referred mechanism involving a change in patient's rate of breathing effort from that of patient's intrinsic rate to the rate of mechanical insufflation. The specific ventilatory settings associated with or responsible for RT remains unknown.

Aims: To assess in mechanically ventilated critically ill patients the influence of the set respiratory rate (RR) and tidal volume (Vt) on the presence/development of RT and to describe the pattern of respiratory muscle activity during Reverse Triggering (RT).

Methods. 30 adult patients (15 in each group), sedated and under assist-controlled ventilation will be included. Ventilator settings will be modified to modulate the frequency and magnitude of reverse triggering. Initially, with the ventilator on a mode called volume control, which means the ventilator controls the amount of air (tidal volume) and the number of breaths the patients gets every minute (respiratory rate [RR]). The tidal volume will be set at the current standard clinical practice setting (6 ml/kg of predicted body weight). The presence of an intrinsic respiratory rate will be assessed with an end-expiratory occlusion maneuver. Next, the number of breaths the ventilator gives per minute (RR) will be changed from 6 breaths less to 6 breaths more, in steps of 2 breaths every minute. The protocol will be repeated again changing the amount of air the patients gets (tidal volume) from 4, 5, 7 and 8 ml/kg. Continuous recordings of airway pressure, flow, esophageal pressure, electrical activity of the diaphragm, main accessory muscles and frontal electroencephalography will be obtained during the protocol and baseline clinical and physiological characteristics and outcomes will be recorded. A validated software will be used to detect RT and measure the intensity and timing of each muscle electrical activity and the magnitude of the inspiratory effort during RT.