Intermittent mandatory ventilation; is synchronization important?

Intermittent mandatory ventilation (IMV) allows patients to breathe spontaneously between mechanically supported breaths. Recently, several manufacturers have implied that nonsynchronous application of the mechanical breath may depress cardiovascular function and increase pulmonary barotrauma. Because it is technically difficult and expensive to synchronize mechanical ventilation to spontaneous breathing, we sought to determine whether there is any significant difference in cardiopulmonary function during synchronous and nonsynchronous mandatory ventilation. Our investigation failed to support the hypothesis that synchronization of spontaneous and mechanically mediated breathing is physiologically beneficial.