Fetal and Neonatal this issue
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Managing successful extubation of ventilated premature
infants is more art than science and is fraught with difficulty, so that any study which purports to assist in this difficult process is
bound to be read with interest. Davis and colleagues (page 82) describe
the results of a randomised controlled trial of the use of double
versus single nasal prongs after extubation. Significantly fewer babies
(24% versus 37%) "failed" extubation. However, the criteria for
failure was not reventilation, but included apnoea; an increase of more
than 15% in the inspired oxygen concentration; and respiratory
acidosis. The failure rate of single prong extubation was thus much
higher than in previous studies, which have usually used reventilation
as the sole criteria with which to define failure. It is not entirely
clear from the study whether or not babies randomised to the dual prong
system received CPAP
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