Obesity and Weaning from Mechanical Ventilation-An Exploratory Study.

Introduction: Obesity is associated with increased risk of hypercapnic respiratory failure, prolonged duration on mechanical ventilation, and extended weaning periods.

Objective: Pilot study to determine whether morbidly obese adult tracheotomized subjects (body mass index [BMI] ⩾ 40) can be more efficiently weaned from the ventilator by optimizing their positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) using either an esophageal balloon or the best achieved static effective compliance.

Methods: We randomly assigned 25 morbidly obese adult tracheotomized subjects (median [interquartile range] BMI 53.