Fresh gas flow requirements during spontaneous ventilation: fresh gas flow to total ventilation ratio or ml kg-1...

Both the performance of breathing systems and recommendations for the fresh gas flows to be used in patients breathing spontaneously can be expressed in ml kg-1 min-1 or fresh gas: total ventilation ratio (VF:VE). We have examined the relationship between these two descriptions. The data of 106 subjects (awake volunteers and anaesthetized patients) were retrieved from the archives of previous work performed in our department. The two methods of describing the requisite fresh gas produced different results, with correlation coefficients (r) between the methods of r = 0.69 and r = 0.49 for the awake and anaesthetized groups, respectively. The results of the multiple regression models suggest that both baseline total ventilation and body weight may be used to predict the fresh gas flow requirements, but residual analysis did not discriminate which method was a better predictor.