The Need for Airway Clearance
New understanding of the pulmonary consequences of uncleared airway secretions is developing rapidly. Mounting evidence demonstrates a strong association between mucus hypersecretion/secretion retention and illness exacerbation, hospitalization, sharply declining FEV1 and death.1,2,3,4 Recognition of the clinical significance of excessive, abnormal, or retained airway secretions provides the rationale for improving mucociliary clearance as a logical treatment goal.
Regardless of underlying causes — whether a physical condition presents a direct or indirect barrier to airway clearance — a primary focus of respiratory care for at-risk individuals should be to avoid mucus retention and to prevent or break the life-destroying cycle of recurrent infection and progressive pulmonary deterioration.
The Vest® Airway Clearance System has been shown to meet all the treatment goals of Airway Clearance Therapy, thereby minimizing the pulmonary complications that contribute significantly to illness, debility, medical care costs, and premature death.
Learn more about airway clearance:
- What is Airway Clearance?
- Normal Airway Clearance
- Impaired Airway Clearance
- Vicious Cycle of Airway Clearance
- Rogers DF, Mucus hypersecretion in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Pathogenesis to Treatment. Novartis Foundation Symposium 234; (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2001).
- Annesi I, et al., Am Rev Respir Dis 1986; 134: 688-693.
- Lange P, et al., Thorax 1990; 45: 579-585.
- Vestbo J, et al., Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1996; 153: 1530-1535.