Improve your success rate in weaning from CPAP.

Improve your success rate in weaning from CPAP.

I doubt there is a unit in the world where at least once a day a discussion ensues about whether an infant is ready to wean or come off their CPAP. For many years we have made the decision based on a variety of markers. Some people would comment on the work of breathing, others on the FiO2 or what the oxygen saturations are at the moment as we round on the patient. Our unit has been pulling oxygen histograms off the patient monitor for years now to provide a more objective measurement to determine if an infant is ready or not. What is a histogram? It is a bar graph representation of the percentage of time in a 24 hour period that an infant has spent in several different oxygen saturation ranges.

A group in Alabama recently published the following paper Oxygen saturation histograms predict nasal continuous positive airway pressure-weaning success in preterm infants. which attempts to answer the question as to whether this practice has merit.

What did they do?

They looked at 36 babies (24 control and 12 cases) in which controls were babies who successfully weaned off CPAP when on less than or equal to 30% oxygen in the first week of life and compared them to infants who failed and had to go back on. Success was defined as remaining off CPAP for 7 consecutive days while failure was having to go back on with in 7 days of discontinuation. All infants were <1250g at birth or less then or equal to 30 weeks gestational age at delivery. Infants were enrolled prospectively in an observational case-control study. During the study goal oxygen saturations were 90-95% and oxygen histograms were monitored q6h by respiratory therapists. Importantly, during the study there was no standard approach to weaning patients off of CPAP but as per many NICUs, discontinuation occurred when FiO2 was low and there were only 1-2 events per day requiring stimulation. The authors controlled for a number of potential factors which could influence success such as GA, BW, Sex, receipt of antenatal steroids, ventilation, caffeine dose, FiO2 prior to weaning and surfactant but found no differences between groups.

What did they find though?

As you might expect there was a difference found and it was in the histograms. The infants who ultimately succeeded in coming off CPAP were better oxygenated in the 24 hours prior to coming off CPAP. Of note, the cases had a median FiO2 of 22% and the controls 21% which was not statistically different.

Looking at the above figure you can see that there were statistically significant differences in the two groups with the babies who successfully weaned off CPAP having significantly higher levels of oxygen saturation in the 95% and above ranges. The authors concluded “The optimal value of oxygen
saturation achievement >95% to predict CPAP-weaning success by Youden index was 31.6% with a sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 75%.”

In other words if you have about 30% of the time spent above 95% in the 24 hours prior to coming off CPAP you have a pretty good chance of success!

Applying the information

Who doesn’t like a study that validates your own practice?! The study is really a beginning though as the study tells us that for babies that are mildly ill (as evidenced by being on room air or 22%) that you can utilize the histogram data to make decisions about when it is best to stop CPAP. What this study though examined is a particular population of small infants who were all taken off CPAP in the first week of life. Would the same principals apply to an older infant or one who is larger at birth? I would like to think so but there are many infants who are on oxygen with BPD who are also weaning off CPAP after many weeks of age. We use histograms in this population as well to guide our weaning but an important measurement that must be taken into account is the FiO2. I can really manipulate a histogram to show anything I want for a baby on oxygen. If it is better from one day to the next is it because the lungs have improved or has the average FiO2 simply been higher in the preceding 24 hours? Conversely if it is worse does the infant have atelectasis or pneumonia or has nursing been more restrictive in FiO2?

Further studies in this area need to create an objective tool that takes into account level of support and mean FiO2 when interpreting the histogram. Failure to do so would lead at times to incorrect decisions if you solely look at a bar graph. As with everything in NICU, the devil is in the details!

Question solved? Why HFNC appears to be inferior to nCPAP for preemies.

Question solved? Why HFNC appears to be inferior to nCPAP for preemies.

To be sure there are fans of both HFNC and CPAP out there. I have often heard from other Neonatologists that they use HFNC and find positive results while other centres refuse to use it in favour of the tried and true CPAP. Turning to the literature you will find some conflicting results with some studies suggesting equity and others more recently favouring CPAP. There has been speculation as to why one would be superior to the other and now we appear to have some answers as to where the differences lie.

A Physiologic Study

Liew et al published Physiological effects of high-flow nasal cannula therapy in preterm infants this month in an elegant study of 40 infants. The study was fairly simple in design either randomizing infants <37 weeks to starting with nCPAP +6 and then transitioning to 8 l/min HFNC followed by stepwise reductions of 1 l/min until 2 l/min was reached or the reverse, starting with 2 l/min and working their way up and then transitioning to nCPAP+6. All infants were on one or the other modality at the start and were all at least 3 days old, they were randomized to one or the other arm regardless of where they started off. Physiologic measurements were taken at each step including the following:

Mv -Minute ventilation
pEEP – nasopharyngeal end-expiratory pressure
pEECO2 -nasopharyngeal end-expiratory CO2
RR – respiratory rate;
SpO2 – oxygen saturation
TCCO2 – transcutaneous CO2
Vt – tidal volume

A Fabian device was used to deliver either HFNC or CPAP at the different flows for all patients.

The Results

The authors certainly found some interesting results that I think shed some light on why comparisons of HFNC and CPAP have been so inconsistent.

Table 2 contains the results of the study and I will point out the main findings below.

1. Flow matters – Compared to nCPAP+6 which is fairly consistent flows below 6 l/min deliver pEEP that is below 6 cm H2O.
2. Keep the mouth shut – With CPAP whether the mouth is open or closed the Fabian device delivers +6 cm H2O. As you can see from the table, when the mouth is open transmitted pressures drop off substantially. The infant put on a flow of even 6-8 l/min of HFNC sees pressures less than +6 consistently.
3. As flows increase end expiratory CO2 decreases. HFNC seems to help wash out CO2
4. Low flow rates on HFNC do not seem to help with ventilation as much as higher flow rates. In order to maintain Mv these infants at 2 l/min flow become tachypneic. The low pressures produced likely cause some atelectasis and hence tachypnea.

Size matters! Beware of excessive pressures.

An additional finding of this study was that on “multiple linear regression, flow rate, mouth position, current weight and gestation but not prong-to-nares ratio significantly predicted pEEP and account for a significant amount of its variance (F(4431)=143.768, p<0.0001), R2=0.572, R2=adjusted 0.568).” Essentially, infants under 1000g in particular could see pEEP levels as high as 13 cm H2O with flows of 8 l/min. The variability in transmitted pressures with HFNC is shown nicely in this figure from the study.

As flows increase above 6 l/min the actual pressures delivered become less reliable.

Conclusions

Looking at this data, it becomes evident why HFNC may be failing in its attempt to dethrone nCPAP. In order to achieve higher pressures and provide comparable distending pressure to nCPAP you need higher flows. With higher flows though come the problem of greater variability in delivered pressure. While the average pressure delivered may be equivalent or even higher than a CPAP of +6, in some infants (especially those below 1000g) one may be delivering significantly higher pressures than intended which may help with oxygenation and preventing intubation but others may be seeing far less than needed.
What it comes down to is that nCPAP is better at delivering a consistent amount of pressure. Studies using lower flows of HFNC likely failed to show superiority to CPAP as they just didn’t deliver enough pressure. An example of this was the study by Roberts CT et al Nasal High-Flow Therapy for Primary Respiratory Support in Preterm Infants, in which flows of 6-8 l/min were used.  Other studies using higher pressures could have been problematic due to open mouths, or larger babies not receiving as much benefit.
I am not saying that we should throw out HFNC entirely however. Depending on the unit you practice in you might not be able to use CPAP but HFNC may be allowed. If you had to choose between no support or HFNC I would likely go with the HFNC. For me at least, if I want to delivery reliable pressures in my tertiary care NICU I will be calling for the CPAP.

Question solved? Why HFNC appears to be inferior to nCPAP for preemies.

Less Invasive Surfactant Administration with High Volume Surfactant

InSurE (Intubate, Surfactant, Extubate) has been the standard approach for some time when it comes to treating RDS.  Less Invasive Surfactant Administration (LISA) or Minimally Invasive Surfactant Administration (MIST) have been growing in popularity as an alternative technique.  More than just popular, the techniques have been shown to reduce some important short term and possibly long term outcomes when used instead of the InSurE approach.  Aldana-Aquirre et al published the most recent systematic review on the topic in  Less invasive surfactant administration versus intubation for surfactant delivery in preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. They demonstrated that when looking at 6 RCTs with 895 infants, the overall results indicate that use of LISA instead of InSurE leads to a lower rate of death or bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) at 36 weeks (risk ratio (RR)=0.75 (95% CI 0.59 to 0.94), p=0.01) and the need for mechanical ventilation within 72 hours of birth (RR=0.71 (0.53 to 0.96), p=0.02) or anytime during the patient stay in the NICU (RR=0.66 (0.47 to 0.93), p=0.02).  This study has been out for two years this month and yet here we are at least in my centre still performing InSurE.

  Why is that?

One reason likely has something to do with the expression “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”.  We know how to do InSurE and we are pretty good at it.  Performing the LISA technique is not just about putting a catheter in the airway and instilling surfactant.  There are several steps that need to be done in order to ensure that the surfactant goes where it is supposed to so there is training required but such training is available in videos posted on the internet or I am sure available from centres willing to share their methods.  Still it takes someone declaring we need to change before anything will happen.  The second reason for this insistence on the status quo has been the availability of only a large volume surfactant in Canada at 5 ml/kg while in European centres the volume administered was half that.  Now a low volume surfactant is available in Canada but some centres have been slow to make a switch due to comfort with the current product.  The drawback to the current product is the concern that you can’t use it for LISA techniques since the centres practicing this technique use the low volume form.

Can High Volume Be Used For Lisa?

Researchers in London, Ontario performed a retrospective cohort study of 43 infants in their institution who underwent the MIST approach for surfactant administration in their study High-volume surfactant administration using a minimally invasive technique: Experience from a Canadian Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. In 2016, London instituted a change in practice to provide MIST for infants born at ≥28 weeks and/or with a birth weight ≥ 1,000 g with respiratory distress syndrome.  Surfactant was provided over 1-3 minutes via a MAC catheter guided through the vocal cords with Magill forceps.  What I like about this study is the reproducibility of it as the authors describe very nicely how the steps were done.   What I also appreciate is the provision of sucrose and atropine prior to the procedure.  Not a rapid sequence induction but it does do something to address the risk of bradycardia and discomfort with cannulation of the trachea.  The results I think speak for themselves that this is indeed possible as 41/43 neonates underwent the procedure with successful instillation of surfactant confirmed by absence of recovered surfactant in aspirated stomach contents.

All of these infants qualified for BLES based on an oxygen requirement on non-invasive support of 40% or more.  These patients are similar to our own in Winnipeg in terms of qualifying criteria for surfactant but perhaps a little higher tolerance of FiO2 before intubating.  Additional evidence that surfactant was indeed received was the reduction to room air in 85% of patients within 24 hours and also the need for a second dose of surfactant in only 10%.

Aside from oxygen desaturation in about 50% during BLES administration the adverse effects were fairly limited and similar to what one would see with InSurE.

What now?

BLES can be administed via MIST despite concerns about the higher volume of surfactant.  What many centres need to address I suspect is that while we think we are practicing InSurE, in many cases we are not.  The goal of that procedure is to provide the surfactant over a few seconds and then get the ETT out right away.  How often does that happen though in reality?  Have you ever found yourself leaving the ETT in till the baby gets to NICU and extubating there?  Seems safer right?  What if in the elevator or hallway on the way to NICU the baby deteriorates and needs intubation?  How long does the ETT stay in? Twenty minutes, 30, 45, 60 or longer?  Thinking about that in a different way, what does that translate into in terms of number of PPV breaths?  Well at a rate of 60 breaths a minute that means 1800,  2700, 3600 and more breaths before the ETT is removed.  I have often wondered if this in itself explains why InSurE seems to be repeatedly identified as being inferior to MIST.  If you intubated, gave the surfactant and pulled the ETT out right away in all cases might the two techniques actually be equivalent.

The question now really is how do we get past our tendencies and embrace a change in practice that by design will not allow us to delivery any positive pressure breaths?!

Intubating to give surfactant is so 2017!

Intubating to give surfactant is so 2017!

A real change is coming and with this post you will get a glimpse into where the next big thing in Neonatology is likely to be.  A catchy title for sure and also an exaggeration as I don’t see us abandoning the endotracheal tube just yet.  There has been a lot of talk about less invasive means of giving surfactant and the last few years have seen several papers relating to giving surfactant via a catheter placed in the trachea (MIST or LISA techniques as examples).  There may be a new kid on the block so to speak and that is aerosolized surfactant.  This has been talked about for some time as well but the challenge had been figuring out how to aerosolize the fluid in such a way that a significant amount of the surfactant would actually enter the trachea.  This was really a dream of many Neonatologists and based on a recently published paper the time may be now for this technique to take off.

A Randomized Trial of Aerosolized Surfacant

Minocchieri et al as part of the CureNeb study team published Nebulised surfactant to reduce severity of respiratory distress: a blinded, parallel, randomised controlled trial. This trial set out to obtain a sample size of 70 patients between 29 0/7 to 33 6/7 weeks to demonstrate a difference in need for intubation from 30% down to 5% in patients treated with CPAP (30% was based on the historical average).  The authors recognizing that the babies in this GA bracket might behave differently, further stratified the randomization into two groups being 29 0/7 – 31 6/7 weeks and 32 0/7 to 33 6/7 weeks.  Those babies who were on CPAP and met the following criteria for intubation were either intubated in the control group and given surfactant (curosurf) using the same protocol as those nebulized or had surfactant delivered via nebulisation (200 mg/kg: poractant alfa) using a customised vibrating membrane nebuliser (eFlow neonatal). Surfactant nebulisation(100 mg/kg) was repeated after 12 hours if oxygen was still required.  The primary dichotomous outcome was the need for intubation within 72 hours of life, and the primary continuous outcome was the mean duration of mechanical ventilation at 72 hours of age.

Criteria for intubation

1. FiO2 >0.35 over more than 30 min OR FiO2 >0.45 at
anytime.
2. More than four apnea/hour OR two apnea requiring BVM
3. Two cap gases with pH <7.2 and PaCO2 >65 mm Hg (or) >60 mm Hg if arterial blood gas sample).
4. Intubation deemed necessary by the attending physician.

Did It Work?

Eureka! It seemed to work as 11 of 32 infants were intubated in the surfactant nebulisation group within 72 hours of birth vs.22 out of 32 infants receiving CPAP alone (RR (95% CI)=0.526 (0.292 to 0.950)). The reduction though was accounted for by the bigger babies in the 32 0/7 to 33 6/7 weeks group as only 1 of 11 was intubated when given nebulized surfactant compared to 10 of 13 managed with CPAP.  The duration of ventilation in the first 72 hours was not different between the groups: the median (range) 0 (0–62) hour for the nebulization group and 9 (0–64) hours for the control group (p=0.220).  It is important in seeing these results that the clinicians deciding whether infants should be intubated for surfactant administration were blind to the arm the infants were in.  All administration of curosurf via nebulization or sham procedures were done behind a screen.

The total number of infants randomized were 66 so they did fall shy of the necessary recruitment but since they did find a difference the results seem valid.  Importantly, there were no differences in complications although I can’t be totally confident there really is no risk as this study was grossly underpowered to look at rarer outcomes.

Breaking down the results

This study has me excited as what it shows is that “it kind of works“.  Why would larger babies be the ones to benefit the most?  My guess is that some but not a lot of surfactant administered via nebulization reaches the alveoli.  Infants with lesser degrees of surfactant deficiency (32 0/7 to 33 6/7) weeks might get just enough to manage without an endotracheal tube.  Those infants (in particular less than 32 0/7 weeks) who have more significant surfactant deficiency don’t get enough and therefore are intubated.  Supporting this notion is the overall delay in time to intubation in those who were intubated despite nebulization (11.6 hours in the nebulization group vs 4.9 hours in the control arm).  They likely received some deposition in the distal alveoli but not enough to completely stave off an endotracheal tube.

One concerning point from the study though had to do with the group of infants who were intubated despite nebulization of surfactant.  When you look at total duration of ventilation (hours) it was 14.6 (9.0–24.8) in the control arm vs 25.4 (14.6–42.2) p= 0.029*.  In other words infants who were intubated in the end spent about twice as long intubated as those who were intubated straight away.  Not a huge concern if you are born at 32 weeks or more but those additional thousands of positive pressure breaths are more worrisome as a risk for CLD down the road.

As it stands, if you had an infant who was 33 weeks and grunting with an FiO2 of 35% might you try this if you could get your hands on the nebulizer?  It appears to work so the only question is whether you are confident enough that the risk of such things as pneumothorax or IVH isn’t higher if intubation is delayed.  It will be interesting to see if this gets adopted at this point.

The future no doubt will see a refinement of the nebulizer and an attempt to see how well this technique works in infants below 29 weeks.  It is in this group though that prolonging time intubated would be more worrisome.  I don’t want to dismiss this outright as I see this as a pilot study that will lead the way for future work that will refine this technique.  If we get this right this would be really transformative to Neonatology and just might be the next big leap.

Improve your success rate in weaning from CPAP.

Capnography or colorimetric detection of CO2 in the delivery suite. What to choose?

For almost a decade now confirmation of intubation is to be done using detection of exhaled CO2. The 7th Edition of NRP has the following to say about confirmation of ETT placement “The primary methods of confirming endotracheal tube placement within the trachea are detecting exhaled CO2 and a rapidly rising heart rate.” They further acknowledge that there are two options for determining the presence of CO2 “There are 2 types of CO2 detectors available. Colorimetric devices change color in the presence of CO2. These are the most commonly used devices in the delivery room. Capnographs are electronic monitors that display the CO2 concentration with each breath.” The NRP program stops short of recommending one versus the other. I don’t have access to the costs of the colorimetric detectors but I would imagine they are MUCH cheaper than the equipment and sensors required to perform capnography using the NM3 monitor as an example. The real question though is if capnography is truly better and might change practice and create a safer resuscitation, is it the way to go?

Fast but not fast enough?

So we have a direct comparison to look at. Hunt KA st al published Detection of exhaled carbon dioxide following intubation during resuscitation at delivery this month. They started from the standpoint of knowing from the manufacturer of the Pedicap that it takes a partial pressure of CO2 of 4 mm Hg to begin seeing a colour change from purple to yellow but only when the CO2 reaches 15 mm Hg do you see a consistent colour change with that device. The capnograph from the NM3 monitor on the other hand is quantitative so is able to accurately display when those two thresholds are reached. This allowed the group to compare how long it took to see the first colour change compared to any detection of CO2 and then at the 4 and 15 mm Hg levels to see which is the quicker method of detection. It is an interesting question as what would happen if you were in a resuscitation and the person intubates and swears that they are in but there is no colour change for 5, 10 or 15 seconds or longer? At what point do you pull the ETT? Compare that with a quantitative method in which there is CO2 present but it is lower than 4. Would you leave the tube in and use more pressure (either PIP/PEEP or both?)? Before looking at the results, it will not shock you that ANY CO2 should be detected faster than two thresholds but does it make a difference to your resuscitation?

The Head to Head Comparison

The study was done retrospectively for 64 infants with a confirmed intubation using the NM3 monitor and capnography.  Notably the centre did not use a colorimetric detector as a comparison group but rather relied on the manufacturers data indicating the 4 and 15 mm Hg thresholds for colour changes.  The mean age of patients intubated was 27 weeks with a range of 23 – 34 weeks.  The results I believe show something quite interesting and informative.

Median time secs (range)
Earliest CO2 detection 3.7 (0 – 44s)
4 mm Hg 5.3 (0 – 727)
15 mm Hg 8.1 (0 – 727)

I wouldn’t worry too much about a difference of 1.6 seconds to start getting a colour change but it is the range that has me a little worried.  The vast majority of the patients demonstrated a level of 4 or 15 mm Hg within 50 seconds although many were found to take 25-50 seconds.  When compared to a highest level of 44 seconds in the first detection of CO2 group it leads one to scratch their head.  How many times have you been in a resuscitation and with no CO2 change you keep the ETT in past 25 seconds?  Looking closer at the patients, there were 12 patients that took more than 30 seconds to reach a threshold of 4 mm Hg.  All but one of the patients had a heart rate in between 60-85.  Additionally there was an inverse relationship found between gestational age and time to detection.  In other words, the smallest of the babies in the study took the longest to establish the threshold of 4 and 15 mm Hg.

Putting it into context?

What this study tells me is that the most fragile of infants may take the longest time to register a colour change using the colorimetric devices.  It may well be that these infants take longer to open up their pulmonary vasculature and deliver CO2 to the alveoli.  As well these same infants may take longer to open the lung and exhale the CO2.  I suppose I worry that when a resuscitation is not going well and an infant at 25 weeks is bradycardic and being given PPV through an ETT without colour change, are they really not intubated?  In our own centre we use capnometry in these infants (looks for a wave form of CO2) which may be the best option if you are looking to avoid purchasing equipment for quantitative CO2 measurements.  I do worry though that in places where the colorimetric devices are used for all there will be patients who are extubated due to the thought that they in fact have an esophageal intubation when the truth is they just need time to get the CO2 high enough to register a change in colour.

Anyways, this is food for thought and a chance to look at your own practice and see if it is in need of a tweak…

If A Little Caffeine Is Good Is A Lot Better?

If A Little Caffeine Is Good Is A Lot Better?

Caffeine seems to be good for preterm infants.  We know that it reduces the frequency of apnea in the this population and moreover facilitates weaning off the ventilator in a shorter time frame than if one never received it at all.  The earlier you give it also seems to make a difference as shown in the Cochrane review on prophylactic caffeine. When given in such a fashion the chances of successful extubation increase. Less time on the ventilator not surprisingly leads to less chronic lung disease which is also a good thing.

I have written about caffeine more than once though so why is this post different?  The question now seems to be how much caffeine is enough to get the best outcomes for our infants.  Last month I wrote about the fact that as the half life of caffeine in the growing preterm infant shortens, our strategy in the NICU might be to change the dosing of caffeine as the patient ages.  Some time ago though I wrote about the use of higher doses of caffeine and in the study analyzed warned that there had been a finding of increased cerebellar hemorrhage in the group randomized to receive the higher dosing.  I don’t know about where you work but we are starting to see a trend towards using higher caffeine base dosing above 5 mg/kg/d.  Essentially, we are at times “titrating to effect” with dosing being as high as 8-10 mg/kg/d of caffeine base.

Does it work to improve meaningful outcomes?

This month Vliegenthart R et al published a systematic review of all RCTs that compared a high vs low dosing strategy for caffeine in infants under 32 weeks at birth; High versus standard dose caffeine for apnoea: a systematic review. All told there were 6 studies that met the criteria for inclusion.  Low dosing (all in caffeine base) was considered to be 5- 15 mg/kg with a maintenance dose of 2.5 mg/kg to 5 mg/kg.  High dosing was a load of 5 mg/kg to 40 mg/kg with a maintenance of 2.5 mg/kg to 15 mg/kg.  The variability in the dosing (some of which I would not consider high at all) makes the quality of the included studies questionable so a word of warning that the results may not truly be “high” vs “low” but rather “inconsistently high” vs. “inconsistently low”.

The results though may show some interesting findings that I think provide some reassurance that higher dosing can allow us to sleep at night.

On the positive front, while there was no benefit to BPD and mortality at 36 weeks PMA they did find if they looked only at those babies who were treated with caffeine greater than 14 days there was a statistically significant difference in both reduction of BPD and decreased risk of BPD and mortality.  This makes quite a bit of sense if you think about it for a moment.  If we know that caffeine improves the chances of successful extubation and we also know it reduces apnea, then who might be on caffeine for less than 2 weeks?  The most stable of babies I would expect!  These babies were all < 32 weeks at birth.  What the review suggests is that those babies who needed caffeine for longer durations benefit the most from the higher dose.  I think I can buy that.

On the adverse event side, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise many that the risk of tachycardia was statistically increased with an RR of 3.4.  Anyone who has explored higher dosing would certainly buy that as a side effect that we probably didn’t need an RCT to prove to us.  Never mind that, have you ever taken your own pulse after a couple strong coffees in the morning?

What did it not show?

It’s what the study didn’t show that is almost equally interesting.  The cerebellar hemorrhages seen in the study I previously wrote about were not seen at all in the other studies.  There could be a lesson in there about taking too much stock in secondary outcomes in small studies…

Also of note, looking at longer term outcome measures there appears to be no evidence of harm when the patients are all pooled together.  The total number of patients in all of these studies was 620 which for a neonatal systematic review is not bad.  A larger RCT may be needed to conclusively tell us what to do with a high and low dosing strategy that we can all agree on.  What do we do though in the here and now?  More specifically, if you are on call tomorrow and a baby is on 5 mg/kg/d of caffeine already, will you intubate them if they are having copious apneic events or give them a higher dose of caffeine when CPAP or NIPPV that they are already on isn’t cutting it?  That is where the truth about how you feel about the evidence really comes out.  These decisions are never easy but unfortunately you sometimes have to make a decision and the perfect study hasn’t been done yet.  I am not sure where you sit on this but I think this study while certainly flawed gives me some comfort that nothing is truly standing out especially given the fact that some of the “high dose” studies were truly high.  Will see what happens with my next patient!