Respiratory entrainment related reverse triggering in mechanically ventilated children

The underlying pathophysiological pathways how reverse triggering is being caused are not fully understood. Respiratory entrainment may be one of these mechanisms, but both terms are used interchangeably. We sought to characterize reverse triggering and the relationship with respiratory entrainment among mechanically ventilated children with and without acute lung injury. We performed a secondary phyiology analysis of two previously published data sets of invasively mechanically ventilated children < 18 years with and without lung injury mechanically ventilated in a continuous or intermittent mandatory ventilation mode. Ventilator waveforms, electrical activity of the diaphragm measured with surface electromyography and oesophageal tracings were analyzed for entrained and non-entrained reverse triggered breaths. In total 102 measurements (3110 min) from 67 patients (median age 4.9 [1.8 ; 19,1] months) were analyzed. Entrained RT was identified in 12 (12