12th January 2024

Presentation

Symptoms and Signs of Acute Respiratory Failure are those of the underlying disease combined with those of hypoxaemia and hypercapnia. Clinical features are often non-specific; hence, attention must be paid to serial ABGs.

Table 3: Signs and symptoms of hypoxaemia vs hypercapnia

Rupa Bessant, & Jonathan Birns, & Charlotte Ford (2020). Non-invasive ventilation. Richard Lee., & Brintha Selvarajah, & William L. G. Oldfield, Medicine For MRCP 2020. OXFORD University Press

Differential Diagnosis

Due to varied clinical presentations of respiratory failure, a few differentials must be ruled out.

Type 1 respiratory failure (T1RF)

T1RF must be differentiated from other diseases that cause hypoxia, such as acute decompensated heart failure, adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), pulmonary oedema, pneumonia and lung fibrosis.

Type 2 respiratory failure (T2RF)

Different pathologies leading to hypercapnia should be ruled out, including COPD, opioid toxicity, myasthenia gravis, status asthmaticus, Guillain barre syndrome, etc.