Transcutaneous carbon dioxide monitoring as a valid complementary method in acute respiratory failure. Issue 6 (10th December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Perkhofer, Lukas; Strobel, Anika; Gagiannis, Daniel; Seufferlein, Thomas; Schmidt, Katarina; Mayer, Benjamin; Kleger, Alexander; Müller, Martin
• Is Part Of: European respiratory journal. Volume 56:Issue 6(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-12-10
• Subjects: Respiratory organs -- Diseases -- Periodicals; Respiration -- Periodicals; 616.2
• DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02137-2020
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0903-1936

Abstract

Concise monitoring of patients suffering from acute respiratory failure is mandatory, but highly labour-intensive; thus, tying up personnel and organisational resources due to the requirement for repetitive arterial blood gas analyses (aBGA). More than anything the current COVID-19 crisis unveiled the real scarcity in staff resources and consequently shortage of surveillance capacity. Based on published data transcutaneous capnometry (TcCO2 ) is not suitable to fully replace aBGA. In line, a recently published article from Mummery et al . [1] critically assesses value and reliability of TcCO2 in an emergency care unit, revealing that TcCO2 cannot concordantly detect very slight changes in arterial carbon dioxide tension ( P aCO2 ) values defined within the range ±0.25 kPa (1.88 mmHg). Transcutaneous capnometry can be used as a valid complementary method in monitoring patients with acute respiratory failure in a non-critical care setting https://bit.ly/2Bhgtw4