LUNG and DIAPHRAGM-PROTECTIVE

VENTILATION CONSENSUS CONFERENCE

MiCo Milano, Milan, Italy

6th-8th May 2019

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Members of the Pleural Pressure Working Group gathered from around the world for a state-of-the-art meeting on an important new challenge in the management of patients with acute respiratory failure: integrating the traditional focus on lung-protective ventilation with the emerging paradigm of diaphragm-protective mechanical ventilation. The meeting involved two days of extensive discussion and debate about the best available mechanistic and clinical evidence supporting various facets of lung and diaphragm-protective ventilation strategies. Over the two days, a genuine consensus emerged over the importance of addressing the new issues raised and the need for advances in monitoring and intervention to target mechanisms of lung and diaphragm injury during ventilation. Participants agreed that the meeting was a great success; in particular, it was a phenomenal opportunity for junior investigators in the field to interact with more established leaders. The importance of this meeting for clinical practice and for research in the field will emerge over years to come.

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Results from the two-day discussion have now been published on the Am J Respir Crit Care Med. The manuscript discusses how the current approach to mechanical ventilation might be revised to prevent ventilator-induced diaphragm atrophy, injury, and resulting weakness while maintaining lung-protective ventilation, an approach we refer to as lung and diaphragm-protective ventilation. 

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