September 5, 2007 - Results from a study on acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema, or "fluid on the lung," presented at the ESC Congress 2007, in Vienna, Austria, demonstrated that irrespective of the method of administration, noninvasive ventilation helps patients to recover more quickly in the first few hours of their illness, but that this does not improve their subsequent chances of survival.
The aim of the 3CPO trial was to establish whether high-pressure oxygen, given by a simple facemask, could help reduce the death rate in patients with this condition.
The 3CPO trial, led by Alasdair Gray, M.D., was undertaken over three years in 26 Emergency Departments across the United Kingdom and recruited over 1,000 patients with this severe life-threatening condition. The study established that administering oxygen at high pressure (noninvasive ventilation) did speed up the recovery of these patients irrespective of how this was performed. However, noninvasive ventilation did not influence whether the patient ultimately died. This first major large scale clinical trial has demonstrated that noninvasive ventilation is a useful treatment to alleviate distress and improve breathing in patients with "fluid on the lung" but that it does not improve their subsequent chances of survival.
For more information: www.escardio.org