Strategies in Patients with Right Ventricular Failure on Mechanical Ventilation

Abstract

Right ventricular failure is a complex clinical syndrome, and is a challenge for the intensivist to diagnose in critically ill patients, more so in patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Acute RV failure is a sudden deterioration of RV function and an inability of the RV to pump adequate cardiac output to the pulmonary circulation, thereby leading to inadequate cardiac output to the systemic circulation. The most common causes of acute RV failure are acute RV myocardial infarction, massive pulmonary embolism, congenital heart diseases, and severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. Over the years, RV has been considered a passive chamber of the heart and has received less focus about the way it functions and how efficiently the RV dysfunction can be managed. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute in 2006 convened a working group to better understand the mechanisms of right ventricular dysfunction and the various ways and means to diagnose and manage right ventricular dysfunction.