Is it safe to use a single ventilator for two or more patients?

  1. Sebastián Ugarte Ubiergo
  2. Felipe Castillo Merino
  3. Óscar Arellano-Pérez

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Abstract

Mechanical ventilation is essential in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic context. Considering the limited availability of mechanical ventilators due to high costs increased by global demand, the use of a single ventilator for two or more patients has been encouraged. An experimental model that ventilates two test lungs with a single machine has been designed in order to measure possible asymmetries during parallel circuit ventilation under different lung compliance conditions. This paper reports a first assessment of the risks involved in ventilating two patients with a single machine. Since some volumetric differences are not monitored by the ventilator itself, the main risks involved are distension or alveolar collapse if used in actual patients that have different thoracopulmonary mechanics.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.01.20080556: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.01.20080556v5 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.01.20080556v4 on medRxiv
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  5. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.01.20080556v2 on medRxiv
  6. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.01.20080556v1 on medRxiv