Noninvasive Ventilation and Invasive Mechanical Ventilation in the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit at a Tertiary Care Center

Background: Noninvasive (NIV) and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) have always played a crucial role in respiratory intensive care unit (RICU) and, hence, studies regarding optimal use of these modes will be beneficial.Objective: To study predictors and outcomes of NIV and IMV in RICU.Materials and methods: A total of 138 patients were included in a prospective observational study conducted at our tertiary care hospital with ethical approval.Parameters like demographic data, hemogram, clinical diagnosis, chest radiography, computed tomography, simplified acute physiology score (SAPS) 2 score, ventilator duration, hospital stay, and outcome were recorded.Results: Of 138 patients, 85.50% patients maintained on NIV and 14.5% required IMV with mean ages of 48.95 and 52.85 years, respectively.Both subgroups were male-dominant.Simplified acute physiology score 2 (SAPS 2) was significantly higher in the IMV subgroup.Invasive mechanical ventilation patients required ventilator support for more duration than NIV (11.45 vs 6.61).Ventilator-associated complications were significantly more in the IMV subgroup than in NIV (90 vs 49.15%).Mortality rate was significantly higher in the IMV subgroup.The mean duration of hospital stay was lower in the NIV subgroup than IMV (14.26 vs 16.55).Seventy (50.72%) suffered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 68 (49.28%) from non-COVID respiratory diseases.The coronavirus disease (COVID) subgroup had younger patients as compared to the non-COVID (44.27 vs 54.86).Both subgroups were male-dominant.Simplified acute physiology score (SAPS 2) was significantly higher in the non-COVID subgroup than COVID.Ventilator-related complications were found to be more common in the COVID subgroup (70 vs 41.2%).Conclusion: Simplified acute physiology score (SAPS 2) can be used as a prognostic tool to predict NIV and IMV outcomes.