This is not a scientific or technical blog about Esophageal balloons like how to insert, trouble shoot etc, but rather an argument for why using esophageal guided manometry during mechanical ventilation should not be optional or luxury or for research purposes only but should be a routine like using the information given by other ventilator graphics.

I know wha...

Since the inception of mechanical ventilation and for many decades we depended on numbers like tidal volumes, pressures, flow and monitoring gas exchange to monitor and treat patients on mechanical ventilators. Clearly those are not enough.

Our colleagues in the neuro intensive care have beaten us to the concept of multimodal monitoring to get a complete...