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Review
. 2020 Nov 23;192(47):E1532-E1537.
doi: 10.1503/cmaj.201201. Epub 2020 Nov 11.

Prone positioning for patients with hypoxic respiratory failure related to COVID-19

Kevin Venus  1 , Laveena Munshi  1 , Michael Fralick  2
Affiliations
Review

Prone positioning for patients with hypoxic respiratory failure related to COVID-19

Kevin Venus et al. CMAJ. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: Michael Fralick is a Co-principal investigator for the COVID-PRONE study (ClinicalTrials.gov no. NCT04383613). He is also is a consultant for Pine Trees Health, a start-up company developing a CRISPR-based diagnostic test for coronavirus disease 2019. Kevin Venus and Laveena Munshi are members of the steering committee of the COVID-PRONE study. No other competing interests were declared.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
A comparison of some physiological effects of supine (left) and prone (right) positioning. In the prone position, reduced force from other organs is applied to the lungs, which allows for improved lung compliance and therefore improved relation between ventilation and perfusion of the lungs. Top panel: Dark blue arrows indicate the direction of the force exerted on the lungs by the heart. Middle panel: Arrows indicate the direction of the force exerted on the lungs by the abdominal organs. For prone positioning, less force from these organs is applied to the lungs, which allows for improved lung compliance by decreasing the force it needs to expand against. Bottom panel: Graded shading represents lung perfusion with darker shade representing greater ventilation/perfusion mismatch owing to alveolar collapse posteriorly in the supine position (reduced in the prone patient as this position allows for more even chest expansion). Note: A = anterior, P = posterior. Modified from the original figure created by Mike Fralick and Saba Manzoor by Émilie Lacharité.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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