There are many causes of respiratory failure. Some causes of respiratory failure result from disease or damage to the respiratory system. However disease or injury to other organ systems such as the central nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, or the presence of cardiac or septic shock can also cause respiratory dysfunction.

While final diagnosis will certainly affect treatment, assessing and managing the patient’s ability to breathe will not change with diagnosis.  However, once the airway is secure, you then have to diagnose and treat the real problem in order to resolve the respiratory failure.

The Case

In this case, I was an anesthesia resident doing my pediatric rotation at a children’s hospital. It was my turn to be on call for the weekend. At this particular hospital back in 1982, the anesthesia department managed the airway emergencies in the Emergency Department so when I got the page to go to the ED, I ran.

Inside the triage cubicle a 6 year-old girl was clearly unresponsive. She had been sick with fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea for several days according to her mother, who was crying in the corner. She hadn’t been able to hold down any food or fluids for over 24 hours. Her temperature was 102F. She was breathing rapidly but very shallowly. We did not as yet have pulse oximetry, but her color was dusky blue. Her blood pressure was 60/40 and her pulse was 150. She looked septic.

I placed an oral airway and assisted her breathing. She didn’t react at all to the oral airway — no gag reflex. We decided to intubate.

My colleagues quickly placed an IV and I decided to intubate without induction agent or muscle relaxant. If she didn’t need those agents then I didn’t want to potentially compromise her status by giving them. Had she reacted at all when I started to perform direct laryngoscopy I would have aborted and changed the plan.

She didn’t respond at all as I slid the endotracheal tube into the trachea.

We gave her two boluses of 20ml/kg of normal saline. Her color improved, her pulse came down to 110 and her blood pressure rose to 80/50, appropriate for her age. But she still hadn’t woken up.

Ten minutes later the first blood test results returned. Her blood glucose was 10, extremely low. We gave her 2 ml/kg of D25W. Within two minutes she woke up and started fighting the endotracheal tube. As her other vital signs looked much improved and she was now awake and protecting her airway, we elected to extubate her.

The child was admitted to the pediatric ward, was treated for gastroenterits and she did well.

Learnings: Hypovolemia and Hypoglycemia Can Cause Respiratory Failure

This was the first experience that I remember seeing in my career that demonstrated that hypovolemic shock and hypoglycemia can cause profound respiratory failure without lung pathology.  It’s important to remember that respiratory failure can result from a variety of other systemic problems, not just dysfunction of the respiratory system.

Respiratory distress or respiratory failure can come from many causes.

While assisting ventilation and protecting the airway are first priorities to stabilize a patient, treating the cause of the respiratory failure may require more than just ventilation and/or intubation. In fact, treating the cause can sometimes help you avoid the progression of respiratory distress to respiratory failure. If you don’t consider a potential problem or cause, you’re not going to be able to diagnosis it.

May The Force Be With You

Christine Whitten MD
Author of Anyone Can Intubate: a Step by Step Guide, 5th Edition
and
Pediatric Airway Management: a Step by Step Guide

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