Effects of positive end-expiratory pressure on intracranial pressure in dogs with intracranial hypertension.

Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) is used to improve oxygenation in patients with the adult respiratory distress syndrome. Nevertheless, this treatment may increase intracranial pressure (ICP) and be detrimental to certain neurosurgical patients. This clinical situation was simulated by administering PEEP to dogs with normal and elevated ICP. Increases in PEEP increased ICP in all animals. However, the presence of intracranial hypertension diminished the increase in ICP seen at a given level of PEEP. Cerebral perfusion pressure also fell less in the presence of intracranial hypertension than it did in the absence, although in the former situation cerebral perfusion pressure was at the lower limits of the range of cerebral autoregulation. These findings suggest that PEEP is no more detrimental to patients with elevated ICP than it is to patients whose ICP is normal, assuming that their cerebral autoregulation is not impaired.