Patients
Breathing
Liquid in
UMC
Intensive Care
Unit
Like a scene from a science-fiction movie, some of the sickest at University
Medical Center are breathing fluid as a critical life-saving treatment. The liquid is administered to patients suffering from
severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and
breathing with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The liquid
ventilation therapy involves trickling the fluid,
LiquiVent®, into the patient's lungs through
the endotracheal tube.
The fluid _ a clear, colorless, oily liquid that looks and
flows like water but is twice as dense _ carries oxygen and
promotes respiratory gas exchange while opening up the lungs.
The dense fluid also serves to wash out the ailing lungs, assisting
in the removal of debris and other contaminants.
By Kevin Rademacher
Steven B. Johnson, MD, associate professor of surgery
at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and Steven
R. Knoper, assistant research professor with the College of
Medicine, are leading a study examining liquid ventilation, a new
treatment that has produced impressive results.
The ability of liquid perfluorochemicals (PFCs) to support "liquid breathing" first was demonstrated in the early 1960s by immersing a mouse in a glass beaker filled with an oxygenated PFC. Although it was completely submerged in the liquid, the mouse was able to breathe, which proved that the PFC was able to facilitate the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The fluid is "radiopaque," allowing it to show up on
X-rays for easy identification in the lungs.
Patients who have received the new therapy include
individuals with severe respiratory infection, such as
advanced pneumonia and trauma-related lung injuries, Dr. Johnson says.
Since January, several UMC patients have been treated
with the liquid ventilation therapy. The patients who received
the treatment were already in the intensive care unit and
required at least 2½ times the standard amount of oxygen for a
normally breathing person.
"Individuals who have been treated with this therapy so
far have done very well," Dr. Johnson says. "They have
all been on a respirator, and have enjoyed significant
improvement, leading to their eventual extubation."
UMC is testing the liquid ventilation therapy as part of
a multi-center international study on the treatment, and
has ranked as the third-leading international site for
patient involvement in the study. Alliance Pharmaceutical
Corp. of San Diego is developing LiquiVent, the brand name
for the chemical perflubron.
The UA Department of Surgery is working on the
study in conjunction with the critical care pulmonary section of
the Arizona Respiratory Sciences Center. Cheryl Gomez,
RN, with the Department of Surgery's Clinical Research Center,
is coordinating the study.
Alliance Pharmaceutical
Corp.'s proprietary Partial Liquid Ventilation technique involves trickling
LiquiVent® into the lungs of a
mechanically ventilated patient via the endotracheal tube.
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