Abstract:
It was the purpose of this study to examine the respirator „Stephanie“, build by the company Stephan, regarding the efficiency of the conditioning of the air concerning humidity and temperature in a specially developed experimental plant, containing an artificial lung model.
In generell the achieved levels of humidity were to low. The demanded amount of 44 mg water in one liter air at the beginning of the endotracheal tube were mostly not achieved, the average was 39-40 mg/l. Furthermore, our meassurements proved that the use of the longer breathing hose (with a longer not additionally heatable part in the incubator) showed higher levels of humidity than the shorter breathing hose. Moreover, the higher the temperature of the air passing through the breathing hose was, the better were the levels of humidity at the beginning of the endotracheal tube.
Because of these results it was possible to give recommendations for the clinical use of the respirator and to warn of its insufficiency. Therefore, the long breathing hose and a high temperature difference should be used. Freshly prepared humidity units may provide low humidity levels and in the water reservoir there should be as much water as possible. In addition to this, the distance between respirator and incubator should be as small as possible. The ability to provide enough humidity by the humidity unit during the ventilation of a patient may decrease substantially. When high-frequency oscillatory ventilation is used one should pay attention to warning signs of low humidity. At last a worsening of the respiratory situation of the patient could be caused by the insufficiency of the respirator.
The disadvantages of this study are the small number of measurements with the same adjustments and the many singular measurements of special settings. Consequently, this permitted no comparative statistics. However, the descriptive statistics allowed to value the results concerning the clinical importance. The efficiency of the respirator should be examined in larger series of experiments with generally used settings to get statistically reliable data.
This study was developed on the one hand to register the efficiency of this special respirator concerning the achieved levels of humidity and temperature and on the other hand to plan the settings of following studies. All in all, the complexity of the expected problems when this special respirator is used has been emphasized.