with multiple complications. Some of them may be related temporally and not caused by
ventilatory support per sé, but many are a direct result of positive-pressure ventilation. The
risk of barotrauma, for example, increases with mechanical ventilation, whereas nosocomial
pneumonia relies on a variety of clinical factors, one of which is concurrent intubation. In a
study by Zwillich and colleagues37 prospectively examining complications in ventilated …