Intensive Care Network Podcasts

Basic Science Clinic by Steve Morgan & Sophie Connolly In the words of the canonical Roman poet Ovid: “Sickness seizes the body from bad ventilation”. Welcome to Basic Science Clinic Raw Science 9. Convective gas flow provides the substrate to interface with alveolar structural and functional adaptation in orchestrating gas exchange. Gas exchange is the serial interconnection of ventilation, diffusion and perfusion. Alveolar gas composition is determined by amount and type of gases delivered by ventilation, the rate and direction of gas diffusion, and the pulmonary blood flow which continuously recalibrates partial pressure gradients to direct oxygen and carbon dioxide movement. Bulk gas volume displacement is the mechanism of ventilation, but how do we conceptualise and quantify its contribution to gas exchange and its associated abnormalities? In this pod we will examine the quantification of ventilation and parse its correspondence with variance in the dead space volume and central role in carbon dioxi