Ten tips to facilitate understanding and clinical use of esophageal pressure manometry

Excerpt

Esophageal pressure (P _es) is a valid surrogate for pleural pressure (P _pl) that has been shown to be a useful parameter for more than 50 years of research. One application is to measure transpulmonary pressure (P _L), which is the distending pressure of the lungs; another application is the assessment of patient effort when the respiratory muscles are active. The recent LUNG SAFE international study revealed that P _es was employed in less than 1% of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) [1]. There is, therefore, a large potential for the inclusion of esophageal manometry in clinical practice. Here, we present and describe ten tips to be taken into account to adequately measure and interpret P _es in patients with ARDS. …