High Flow Nasal Cannula in Preterm Infants

The study aim to compare two periods, before and after HFNC implementation. During the first period, in 2011, nCPAP (Infant FlowSiPAP) was used as a first-line non-invasive respiratory support. During the second period, in 2014, the use of HFNC support was established as soon as it was possible instead of nCPAP for prevention of apnea, or after extubation, and sometimes in infants with moderate respiratory distress syndrome treated without surfactant. Demographic characteristics, antenatal data, birth characteristics and neonatal morbidities, non-invasive ventilation oxygen administration and HFNC, postnatal steroid therapy, total duration of hospital stay, will be collected from our electronic standardized patient record in which they are prospectively encoded. Simple and multiple linear regression analyses will be used to evaluate the difference of nCPAP therapy duration between Group 1 and Group 2 after adjustment on potential cofactors.

The study aim to compare two periods, before and after HFNC implementation. During the first period, in 2011, nCPAP (Infant FlowSiPAP) was used as a first-line non-invasive respiratory support. During the second period, in 2014, the use of HFNC support was established as soon as it was possible instead of nCPAP for prevention of apnea, or after extubation, and sometimes in infants with moderate respiratory distress syndrome treated without surfactant. Demographic characteristics, antenatal data, birth characteristics and neonatal morbidities, non-invasive ventilation oxygen administration and HFNC, postnatal steroid therapy, total duration of hospital stay, will be collected from our electronic standardized patient record in which they are prospectively encoded. Simple and multiple linear regression analyses will be used to evaluate the difference of nCPAP therapy duration between Group 1 and Group 2 after adjustment on potential cofactors.

The study aim to compare two periods, before and after HFNC implementation. During the first period, in 2011, nCPAP (Infant FlowSiPAP) was used as a first-line non-invasive respiratory support. During the second period, in 2014, the use of HFNC support was established as soon as it was possible instead of nCPAP for prevention of apnea, or after extubation, and sometimes in infants with moderate respiratory distress syndrome treated without surfactant. Demographic characteristics, antenatal data, birth characteristics and neonatal morbidities, non-invasive ventilation oxygen administration and HFNC, postnatal steroid therapy, total duration of hospital stay, will be collected from our electronic standardized patient record in which they are prospectively encoded. Simple and multiple linear regression analyses will be used to evaluate the difference of nCPAP therapy duration between Group 1 and Group 2 after adjustment on potential cofactors.

It will be the same evaluation than in whole population, but in extremely preterm infants borm before 29 weeks gestational age.

Cost analysis will be carried out for the three devices: Infant Flow SiPAP, OptiFlow and Precision Flow, including all consumables. To evaluate the costs these devices will be used as recommended by the manufacturers.The calculated costs will be based on an example of three devices in constant use on a 7-day cycle change of the circuits for the Opti-Flow device, and 30-day cycle change for Precision Flow device. Actual costs will be expressed as price per patient per week.