The effects of non-invasive ventilation on the respiratory function of neonates have not been fully elucidated. Currently, two modalities of non invasive ventilation are commonly used in Brazilian neonatal intensive care units: continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV). In this study, it was hypothesized that NIPPV will improve tidal volume when compared to CPAP. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of continuous positive airway pressure and nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation on breathing pattern variables of very low birth weight neonates immediately after extubation. Soon after extubation, the neonates will be randomized into the CPAP-NIPPV (sequence 1) or the NIPPV-CPAP (sequence 2). The sequence will be assigned at random using sealed envelopes. Respiratory inductive plethysmography will be used to evaluate the breathing pattern (tidal volume, respiratory rate, minute ventilation, mean inspiratory flow) and chest wall motion (labor breathing index, inspiratory phase relation, expiratory phase relation, total phase relation and phase angle). Student t tests for paired samples will be used and the Wilcoxon test according to the data distribution. A significance level of 5% will be adopted. The analyzes will be performed by StatisticalPackage software for the Social Sciences® (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA), version 17.0 for Windows.
The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of continuous positive airway pressure and nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation on breathing pattern variables of very low birth weight neonates immediately after extubation.