Noninvasive ventilation-neurally adjusted ventilator assist for management of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Patient-ventilator asynchrony is common with noninvasive ventilation (NIV) used for management of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Neurally adjusted ventilator assist (NAVA) is a mode of ventilatory support which can minimize the patient-ventilator asynchrony. Delivering NIV with NAVA (NIV-NAVA) during acute exacerbation of COPD seems a logical approach and may be useful in reducing patient-ventilator asynchrony. However, there are no published reports which describe the use of NIV-NAVA for management of acute exacerbation of COPD. We describe the successful management of a 56-year-old gentleman presenting to the emergency department of our hospital with acute exacerbation of COPD with hypercapnic respiratory failure with NIV-NAVA.