High flow nasal cannula: Influence of gas type and flow rate on airway pressure and CO2 clearance in adult nasal airway replicas

High flow nasal cannula therapy is a form of respiratory support which delivers high flow rates of heated, humidified gas to the nares via specialized cannula. Two primary mechanisms of action attributed to the therapy are the provision of positive airway pressure as well as clearance of CO2-rich exhaled gas from the upper airways. Physiologically accurate nose-throat airway replicas were connected at the trachea to a lung simulator, where CO2 was supplied to mimic the CO2 content in exhaled gas. Cannula delivered either air, oxygen or heliox (80/20%volume helium/oxygen) to the replicas at flow rates ranging from 0 to 60 l/min. Five replicas and three cannulas were compared. Tracheal pressure and CO2 concentration were continuously measured. The lung simulator provided breaths with tidal volume of 500 ml and frequency of 18 breaths/min. Additional clearance measurements were conducted for tidal volume and breathing frequency of 750 ml and 27 breaths/min, respectively. Cannula flow rate was the dominant factor governing CO2 concentration. Average CO2 concentration decreased with increasing cannula flow rate, but above 30 L/min this effect was less pronounced. Tracheal positive end-expiratory pressure increased with flow rate and was lower for heliox than for air or oxygen. A predictive correlation was developed and used to predict positive end-expiratory pressure for a given cannula size as a function of supplied flow rate and occlusion of the nares. Compared with administration of air or oxygen, administration of heliox is expected to result in similar CO2 clearance from the upper airway, but markedly lower airway pressure. •Airway gas washout and pressure during high flow therapy was measured using adult airway replicas.•Increasing cannula flowrate resulted in greater gas washout from the airways.•Cannula size and gas type had only minor influence on gas washout.•Airway pressure increased with cannula flow rate approximately quadratically.•Administration of heliox resulted in lower airway pressures than those for air or oxygen.