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Premature, Opportune, and Delayed Weaning in Mechanically Ventilated Patients: A Call for Implementation of Weaning
Maria P Diaz-Soto1,2, Brooks W Morgan1,2, Long Davalos1,2
1Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Objectives:
Weaning protocols establish readiness-to-wean criteria to determine the opportune moment to conduct a spontaneous breathing trial. Weaning protocols have not been widely adopted or evaluated in ICUs in low- and middle-income countries. We sought to compare clinical outcomes between participants whose weaning trials were retrospectively determined to have been premature, opportune, or delayed based on when they met readiness-to-wean criteria.
Design:
Prospective, multicenter observational study.
Setting:
Five medical ICUs in four public hospitals in Lima, Perú.
Subjects:
Adults with acute respiratory failure and at least 24 hours of invasive mechanical ventilation (n = 1,657).
Interventions:
None.
Measurements And Main Results:
We established six readiness-to-wean criteria and retrospectively categorized our sample into three weaning groups: 1) premature: if the weaning trial took place before fulfilling all criteria, 2) opportune: if the weaning trial took place within 24 hours after fulfilling the criteria, and 3) delayed: if the weaning trial took place over 24 hours after fulfilling criteria. We compared 90-day mortality, ventilator-free days, ICU-free days, and hospital-free days between premature, opportune, and delayed weaning groups. In our sample, 761 participants (60.8%) were classified as having a premature weaning trial, 196 underwent opportune weaning (15.7%), and 295 experienced delayed weaning (23.6%). There was no significant difference in 90-day mortality between the groups. Both the premature and delayed weaning groups had poorer clinical outcomes with fewer ventilator-free days (-2.18, p = 0.008) and (-3.49, p < 0.001), ICU-free days (-2.25, p = 0.001) and (-3.72, p < 0.001), and hospital-free days (-2.76, p = 0.044) and (-4.53, p = 0.004), respectively, compared with the opportune weaning group.
Conclusions:
Better clinical outcomes occur with opportune weaning compared with premature and delayed weaning. If readiness-to-wean criteria can be applied in resource-limited settings, it may improve ICU outcomes associated with opportune weaning.
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