Association between hospital mortality and inspiratory airway pressures in mechanically ventilated patients without acute respiratory distress syndrome: a prospective cohort study

Mechanical ventilation can increase survival rates of patients with acute respiratory failure. This life-saving technology, however, may also contribute to or worsen underlying lung injury through alveolar overdistention or repetitive opening and closing of small bronchioles and alveoli [1, 2]. In patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a lung-protective ventilation strategy aimed at preventing overdistention injury by limiting tidal volumes and plateau pressures (Pplat) improves survival and is therefore recommended in clinical practice guidelines [3, 4]. Although these guidelines are frequently extrapolated to mechanically ventilated patients without ARDS, little evidence exists regarding the best ventilatory strategies for patients without ARDS.

Recently, driving pressure (ΔP) emerged as a potential target for optimizing mechanical ventilation to improve outcomes for ARDS patients. ΔP is calculated as the difference between Pplat and positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) and is determined by the ratio of the tidal volume to the compliance of the respiratory system (ΔP = Pplat − PEEP = V_T/C_RS). In patients with ARDS, lower ΔP has been associated with lower mortality in multiple studies and may be a critical mediator for the benefits of lung-protective ventilation strategies [5‐8]. In patients without ARDS, lower ΔP was associated in one study with a decreased risk of postoperative pulmonary complications for patients with normal lungs [9]. However, studies evaluating the relationship between airway pressures and mortality in patients without ARDS are few and demonstrate inconsistent results [9‐11].

Inspiratory airway pressures (Pplat and ΔP) are utilized as surrogates for lung stress during mechanical ventilation, and high levels of stress applied to the lung may be injurious even in patients who do not have ARDS. We hypothesized that higher ΔP and Pplat are associated with higher hospital mortality in non-ARDS patients as well as ARDS patients. To evaluate these relationships, we performed a secondary analysis of a large multicenter, prospective observational cohort of critically ill patients in the USA.

The results of this study suggest that monitoring and potentially limiting inspiratory airway pressures is important for all mechanically ventilated patients, not just patients with ARDS. In our multicenter prospective observational cohort, we demonstrate that inspiratory airway pressures were independently associated with hospital mortality in a cohort of non-ARDS participants requiring mechanical ventilation. We also confirm the previously reported association between inspiratory airway pressures and mortality in ARDS participants [5‐8, 16, 17]. Our results are consistent with prior meta-analyses and epidemiologic studies demonstrating improved outcomes from low versus higher tidal volume ventilation and lower ΔP and Pplat in patients without ARDS [9, 18‐20]. In our study, tidal volumes on average at time of study enrollment were within the target range of 6–8 mL/kg PBW [4]. Even within this range of tidal volumes, however, lower ΔP was associated with increased survival.

Our results suggest that higher ΔP and Pplat reflect potentially injurious stresses on the lungs of non-ARDS patients that are associated with higher odds of mortality. ΔP is determined by the distribution of a tidal volume across the available aerated lung (represented by respiratory system compliance). Patients without ARDS may benefit from reductions in ΔP to prevent or mitigate ventilator-induced lung injury. For example, patients with unilateral pneumonia will have a heterogeneous distribution of tidal volume based on the reduced volume of aerated lung. Increased ΔP in this type of patient may indicate the need for further reductions in tidal volume to prevent overdistention of the unilaterally aerated lung. Similarly, patients with obstructive airways disease may have a heterogeneous distribution of tidal volume and differences in regional transpulmonary pressures due to variations in emptying time of different lung regions (i.e., time constant). In these patients, changes in ΔP could provide information on the influence of different PEEP levels on airflow limitations. Thus, even without the diagnosis of ARDS, ΔP may convey important clinical and prognostic information for the patient with acute respiratory failure. Additionally, even patients without a primary lung disease may benefit from limiting ΔP. Neto and colleagues demonstrated an increased risk of postoperative complications with higher ΔP in patients with normal lungs undergoing surgery [9]. We suggest future clinical trials evaluate whether implementing lung-protective ventilation strategies to limit ΔP increases survival for all mechanically ventilated patients, with or without ARDS.

In contrast, a recent retrospective study by Schmidt and colleagues suggested that ΔP was not associated with mortality in non-ARDS patients [10]. Although their study was similarly powered to ours, it was a single-center cohort and ARDS status was ascertained retrospectively. Furthermore, they had with a limited range of Pplat and PEEP, which may have attenuated the association between ΔP and mortality in their study. In our study, the non-ARDS participants had a wider range of ΔP (interquartile range 10–17 cmH₂O) and lower respiratory system compliance (39.6 L/cmH₂O) compared to the participants in the Schmidt study [10]. Additionally, the Schmidt study included a non-ARDS study population with a low incidence of a pulmonary indication for ICU admission. Their sample had a 4% incidence of pneumonia. In our study, 50.6% of participants had an initial ICU admitting diagnosis related to the respiratory system, with a 30.4% incidence pneumonia. It is possible that the higher incidence of primary lung pathology and subsequent increased risk for ventilator-induced lung injury in our study, as well as the broader range of ΔP and Pplat, improved the power of our study to identify a significant relationship between ΔP and mortality.

Recently, the PReVENT trial investigated a low tidal volume (goal 6 mL/kg PBW) versus an intermediate tidal volume (goal 10 cc/kg PBW) in patients without ARDS. The investigators failed to find a difference in patient outcomes between a low and intermediate tidal volume strategy in non-ARDS patients [18]. However, in this study, baseline ΔP in both groups was relatively low and changed minimally with the tidal volume intervention (low tidal volume group baseline to day 1 ΔP, 11 to 10 cmH₂O; intermediate tidal volume group baseline to day 1 ΔP, 13 to 13 cmH₂O). Consistent with the mediation analysis performed by Amato and colleagues [5], the change in driving pressure may be more important than the change in tidal volume in terms of reducing mortality in mechanically ventilated patients. Additionally, by day 1 following randomization, a majority of participants in the low tidal volume group received pressure support ventilation, which permitted large spontaneous tidal volumes outside of the target 6 mL/kg PBW. The results of the PReVENT trial highlight the importance of prospectively evaluating alternate lung-protective mechanical ventilation strategies in the non-ARDS population. We suggest future trials should focus on limiting ΔP rather than on targeting an absolute tidal volume goal.

Our study has several strengths. First, it is a large prospective cohort study with data from 59 different ICUs, both medical and surgical, geographically dispersed across the USA, which increases the generalizability of our findings. Data were collected prospectively by experienced and trained research coordinators. ARDS status was ascertained prospectively and similarly to how it is determined in a clinical setting. Second, our participants demonstrated wide ranges of ΔP, Pplat, and PEEP, which allow for evaluation across the spectrum of severity of respiratory failure. Third, we internally validated our dataset by evaluating the association between ΔP and ARDS in addition to analyzing the relationship in non-ARDS participants. Finally, our findings are in concordance with other epidemiologic studies suggesting that ΔP is associated with clinical outcomes in non-ARDS participants [9, 19].

Although our results are significant, our study has some potential shortcomings. One major limitation is that our values for Pplat and ΔP were not always derived from the same day of the ICU course across all of the participants. Some participants were enrolled into the study on ICU day 1, others on day 5 and between, and we do not know this distribution of time to intubation to enrollment, which precludes further sensitivity analysis. Needham and colleagues described the importance of timing of lung-protective ventilation and showed that there was a large mortality benefit in starting this earlier rather than later [21]. Misclassification bias could potentially limit our findings as well. Based on enrollment timing, some of the non-ARDS participants may have already starting to develop ARDS contributing to misclassification bias. Alternatively, some of the non-ARDS participants may have developed ARDS after study enrollment, which could have overestimated our non-ARDS mortality and underestimated ARDS mortality. Finally, although ARDS status was prospectively ascertained by trained research coordinators, the diagnosis of ARDS is routinely missed by seasoned clinicians [16, 22]. A sensitivity analysis, however, confirmed that our findings were robust even when classifying participants by the presence or absence of hypoxemic respiratory failure (PaO₂/FiO₂ < 300) rather than diagnosis of ARDS. Nevertheless, many of our non-ARDS participants were relatively hypoxemic with reduced compliance suggesting their lung disease was severe despite the lack of ARDS. Future studies confirming our results will need to standardize the time of airway pressure measurement and consider the longitudinal effect of airway pressures on the risk for mortality and ARDS development.

Another limitation is that the majority of these ICUs were academic which can limit the generalizability of our findings. Furthermore, there were a large number of mechanically ventilated patients who did not have Pplat measured and were excluded from our study. Because our protocol specified obtaining Pplat on all patients if possible, the included patients are presumably different than those who had Pplat measured. Additionally, Pplat and ΔP reflect both lung and chest wall compliance and are potentially affected by spontaneous respiratory efforts. In patients who are spontaneously breathing or have altered chest wall compliance, airway pressures are imperfect measures of lung stress, although may still be adequate surrogates [7]. Finally, our study does not prove a causal effect between lower ΔP and improved survival in non-ARDS participants. Respiratory system compliance, a major component of ΔP, is a strong independent predictor of mortality. The complex mathematical and physiologic coupling between ΔP, compliance, tidal volume, and PEEP further complicates efforts to confirm a causal relationship between ΔP and mortality. However, our results add significantly to the body of evidence supporting the need for randomized controlled trials comparing ΔP-targeted ventilation strategies compared to our current practice of limiting tidal volumes only.

Our findings demonstrate that greater ΔP and Pplat are associated with increased mortality in patients without ARDS, similar to the findings in patients with ARDS. In mechanically ventilated patients, ΔP and Pplat may be useful markers of lung stress. ΔP and Pplat demonstrated a linear relationship with odds of mortality, suggesting that lower ΔP and Pplat are better. Recent evidence suggests ΔP may be a critical target for mechanical ventilation in ARDS patients. ΔP can be lowered by reducing tidal volume or by optimizing respiratory system compliance through PEEP titration or proning [23‐25]. Future research should prospectively evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of ventilation strategies that limit ΔP. Based on our results, these ventilation strategies should be evaluated in both ARDS and non-ARDS patient populations.