A Porcine Model of Acute Respiratory Failure with a Continuous Infusion of Oleic Acid

Our team's translational research is in how vascular waveforms, specifically the low-frequency venous waveform, change in various volume and respiratory states. We are trying to better understand the venous waveform and how the respiratory system influences them. Our research shows that analyzing the fundamental frequencies of respiratory and pulse rates to calculate the RIVA-RI ratio can help in quantitatively monitoring patients'oxygen therapy needs correlating with PaO2.

This could lead to a noninvasive tool for triaging patients with acute respiratory insufficiency, worsening asthma, COPD, emphysema, or idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Given the novel nature of our research, obtaining these venous waveforms in humans is a big challenge and just not practical in a lot of instances. That is why porcine models such as this one are so important to what we do and what we hope to achieve.

The significant findings of our research is that waveforms from the venous side, a traditionally ignored field, hold a vast amount of information. We have found that these venous signals are very sensitive to changes in both volume status and the respiratory condition. This discovery offers hope for enhancing noninvasive respiratory monitoring in humans.