Abstract

DE VITO, Eduardo Luis. Ventilatory pump failure: historical perspective. Rev. am. med. respir. [online]. 2020, vol.20, n.1. ISSN 1852-236X.

IIn humans, PaCO₂ is very strictly controlled. Unlike PaO₂ and all respiratory functional tests that change with age, PaCO₂ remains constant throughout life. Therefore, its sustained deviation represents a significant alteration of homeostasis. The structure responsible for keeping PaCO₂ within very narrow limits is the ventilatory pump. It consists of several anatomical and functional units that go from the cerebral cortex to the respiratory muscles. Several clinical conditions involving these structures can lead to failure of the respiratory pump, whose hallmark is hypercapnia. The relevance of the respiratory pump concept has been acknowledged for decades. A few initial works allowed for a remarkable number of basic, applied and clinical projects regarding the respiratory pump failure and its clinical relevance. This article reviews some of these studies and describes the process that lead to our current state of knowledge on the subject.

Keywords : Respiratory failure; Diaphragm; Respiratory muscles; Hypercapnia; No respiratory response to hypoxia and hypercapnia [Supplementary Concept].

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