Evaluation of conventional weaning criteria in patients with acute respiratory failure.

We evaluated the reliability of conventional weaning criteria from a ventilator during 33 weaning trials on 25 patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF). Of 13 criteria, a ratio of maximal voluntary ventilation to minute ventilation (MV) >2, a vital capacity >12 ml.kg(-1), a spontaneous respiratory rate <25 breaths.min(-1), and a MV <10 l.min(-1) appeared to be useful for predicting successful weaning outcome. However, even using those criteria, there were many falsely-negative cases. The alveolar-arterial P(O)(2) gradient <350 mmHg at an F i(O)(2) 1.0 was not useful as a predictor of weaning outcome. The present study demonstrates that conventional criteria are frequently inaccurate for predicting weaning outcomes and suggests that the use of some of these criteria may unnecessarily prolong the length of ventilator support. Since ventilation of most patients with poor oxygenation can be successfully discontinued by placing them on a continuous positive airway pressure system, these results suggest that the improvement of oxygenation is not an indispensable prerequisite for weaning from mechanical ventilators.