Spontaneous breathing trial

A spontaneous breathing trial is a test for patients on mechanical ventilation, before they can be weaned from the ventilator, i.e. return to normal breathing. The weaning process depends closely on the patient's pathology, but the final common pathway to ventilator independence always includes at least one trial of spontaneous breathing. Trials of spontaneous breathing have been shown to accurately predict the success of spontaneous breathing. rdf:langString