Transcutaneous PO2 monitoring during treatment with continuous positive airway pressure in infants with idiopathic respiratory distress syndrome.

During a 20-month period, 20 infants with idiopathic respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS) were treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) when they required at least 40% inspired oxygen. The infants were allocated to monitoring with either repeated blood-gas determinations according to the usual practice or continuous transcutaneous PO2 measurements supplemented by blood-gas measurements only when judged necessary. The groups were comparable with regard to birth weight and gestational age, and did not differ significantly with regard to effectiveness or duration of the CPAP treatment, survival rates (90 versus 80%) or number of complications. None developed retrolental fibroplasia. However, PtcO2 monitoring resulted in significantly less hypo- and hyperoxaemia and the number of blood-gas analyses performed during CPAP therapy amounted to only 0.6 per infant per day in the transcutaneously monitored group as against 5.3 in the other group. We propose that PtcO2 monitoring should now be the method of choice and that the use of umbilical artery catheterization should be restricted to selected groups of very low birth-weight infants and to infants in need of ventilator therapy.