High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) versus bilevel positive airway pressure in acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients

Abstract

A comparative study was conducted on COPD patients receiving HFNC or BIPAP to compare the effectiveness of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) and bilevel positive airway pressure (BIPAP) in treating the exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Oxygen saturation stability, patient comfort, and CO2 reduction were measured. Data included oxygen saturation levels, patient comfort scores, and PaCO2 levels. Statistical analysis used were t-tests and correlation coefficients with significance at p < 0.05. BIPAP significantly improved oxygen saturation (94.28% ± 2.63) but had a higher comfort index (2.30 ± 1.36), indicating poorer machine tolerance. HFNC effectively reduced PaCO2 from 54.14mmHg to 47.06mmHg over time and provided greater comfort, improving the comfort score from 1.92 to 0.17. BIPAP shows a marked improvement in maintaining oxygen saturation, but the comfort index is higher, and the machine tolerance is poorer. HFNC can effectively reduce pCO2 over the time while providing more comfort to the patient.