Noninvasive Ventilation in Patients with Acute Respiratory Failure Due to Influenza A(H1N1) Virus Infection

During the type ‘A’ Influenza epidemic (‘swine flu’), most of the patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) required assisted ventilation because of an acute respiratory failure (ARF). Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) was used in varying proportions in the published series, but it showed a high failure rate. In our series — specifically in a group of hypoxemic patients — NIV was employed successfully in all cases without any hypoxemia-related deaths. Accordingly, we recommend NIV can be applied to healthy young hypoxemic patients before considering invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV).