Recorded sessions on demand will be available 24 hours after the session ends

Abstract Body

Optimising early non-invasive respiratory support for newborn infants cared for in tertiary neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and non-tertiary special care nurseries (SCNs) is critical to the health and wellbeing of the infants and their families. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) has long been the mainstay of non-invasive respiratory support for preterm and term infants with respiratory distress in both NICUs and SCNs. Nasal high-flow (nHF) is a newer, simpler form of non-invasive respiratory support, the use of which is dramatically increasing in neonatology due to its perceived ease-of-use and comfort for infants. There have been several randomised trials of this therapy as early respiratory support in the NICU environment, and recently the HUNTER trial of nHF as early support for newborn infants in Australian SCNs was published. There is also interest in the use of nHF in the delivery room for the stabilisation of preterm infants, and to support endotracheal intubation. A/Prof Brett Manley has led several of the largest randomised trials of nHF, and he will discuss the evidence from these studies and the controversies around their interpretation, and will present a potential framework for the choice of non-invasive respiratory support for newborn infants in different gestational age subgroups and in different clinical settings.