Prospective Randomized Multicenter Comparison of High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation (HFOV) and Conventional Ventilation (CV) in Preterm Infants <30 Weeks Gestational Age (GA) with RDS

High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation in the Management of Respiratory Distress Syndrome

“…No difference in the incidence of air leak according to mode of ventilation has been reported when exogenous surfactant was used [9][10][11]. Our results confirm these findings [2]. The use of exogenous surfactant is the main factor explaining the variation in the incidence of air leak [12].…”

“…Similar rates of survival without oxygen at 28 days have been reported in infants receiving CV or HFOV [10,14] and this was confirmed in our trial [2]. When CLD is defined as the requirement of oxygen or mechanical ventilation with an abnormal chest radiograph a significantly reduced incidence has been observed in HFOV treated infants in some studies [9,13] but not in others [1,10,14].…”

“…It was not confirmed in 3 studies using a HVS [9, 10, 13] but we observed an increased risk of severe IVH despite the use of a HVS [2]. The 3 studies which did not report an increased risk of IVH were based on small sample sizes [9,10,13].…”

“…In contrast with the results of several animal experiments which showed a pulmonary benefit of using HFOV, the message from clinical trials was still unclear when we decided to conduct a new study [2]. This paper summarizes the main results from animal experiments and clinical trials, including our own.…”

“…No difference was observed between HFFI and CV [14]. HFOV reduced the incidence of CLD at 36 weeks in 2 studies [9,13], in contrast with other trials including our own [2,10,11]. A meta-analysis of the studies using HVS based on the results of the 2 studies discussed above [9,13] concluded that HFOV reduced the incidence of CLD at 36 weeks [18].…”