Early noninvasive mechanical ventilation in acute lung injury: Does it really work?

摘要

We read with interest the study by Zhan et al (1) where it was shown that noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in acute lung injury (ALI) decreases the occurrence of organ failure without any significant change in mortality. This study involved only patients with ALI. In fact, in 3 yrs after screening >7,000 patients, the authors could recruit only 40 subjects, indicating that the likelihood of patients presenting to a healthcare facility with ALI and with no contraindications to NIV is fairly low, and limits the generalizability of the study.