Patient self-induced lung injury in the COVID-19 pandemic, a resource-limited situation. Review

Lesión autoinducida por el paciente en la pandemia por COVID-19, una situación de recursos limitados. Revisión de tema

In the COVID-19 pandemic, invasive mechanical ventilation is an important management strategy in handling patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The multitudinous ARDS cases have resulted in use of other non-invasive oxygenation devices, which expose the patient to a greater breathing effort, developing patient self-induced lung injury (PSILI). The goal of the present review is to present the available scientific evidence associated with this phenomenon in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A narrative literature review on the topic was performed with a search in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL and Google Scholar databases until September 2020. Based on the abstracts the most representative articles were selected. Invasive mechanical ventilation (IVM) is essential in ARDS, however, in unexperienced hands it can lead to lung injury by different mechanisms. In other side, ARDS patients have been managed with other non-invasive ventilation devices, such as high-flow nasal cannula, which favor PSILI; a condition that apparently perpetuates initial lung lesion and inflammation by different mechanisms, when patients are submitted to spontaneous breathing. The information is still insufficient.