Neumonía asociada a ventilación mecánica

Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a disease with high prevalence in Intensive Care Units (ICU). VAP has the most high mortality among nosocomial infections; it's incidence increase in exponential way everyday during mechanical ventila- tion (MV). Risk factors are gastric alkalinization, inadequate management of respiratory devices, indiscriminate use of antibiotics, and multiple invasive proceedings different from MV. Suspicion of this entity is by means of radiographic findings such as air bronchogram and blood leukocytosis. Sample technics for obtaining of causal microorganisms are bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and protected brush specimen (PBS) through bronchoscopic examination. Antibiotics must be choosen according to clinical evaluation, symptoms onset, and taken into account the most frequent prevalent flora, however, therapy can be delayed as much as 6 hours in order to obtain samples for culture.