title: Mechanics of the respiratory system during high frequency ventilation.
abstract: No rational approach has evolved for selecting operating conditions for clinical application of high-frequency ventilation (HFV). To this end, we divide our discussion of HFV into considerations of mechanics versus transport, and treat the latter as a constraint. After describing some of the phenomena that influence distending pressure (and its distribution) expressed across pulmonary tissues, we address the pressure costs per unit ventilation and the factors that influence them. This narrowly defined approach leads to some fundamental strategies, compromises, and dilemmas. In particular, consideration of the mechanical interaction of the lung and chest wall leads to a paradox, and points out that the influence of the chest wall upon phasic regional lung distension is not well understood.
authors.affiliation: Biomechanics Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Fredberg
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsuda
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Boynton
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Banzett
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lehr
authors.forename: I D
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Frantz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D006612:High-Frequency Ventilation; D006801:Humans; D012143:Respiratory Physiological Phenomena