Imposed Work of Breathing During High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation in Spontaneously Breathing Neonatal and Pediatric Models

High-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is used in cases of neonatal and pediatric acute respiratory failure, sometimes even as the primary ventilatory mode. Allowing patients (at least neonates) on HFOV to breathe spontaneously soon after intubation has been shown to be feasible, and this is becoming a more generally used approach for infants and small children. However, such an approach may increase the imposed work of breathing (WOB), raising the question of whether the imposed WOB varies with the use of newer-generation HFOV devices, which operate according to different functional principles