Effect of Extracorporeal CO2 Removal in Stable Hypercapnic COPD Patients

Chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure is common in stable COPD patients in a terminal phase of their disease In an attempt to correct or slow down the rate of rise of PaCO2, long-term noninvasive mechanical ventilation (NIV) has been proposed. Only very few studies demonstrated the clinical efficacy of NIV. Indeed this technique is not always well tolerated and therefore it may be effective only in a subset of patients Recently extracorporeal CO2 removal have been shown to avoid the need of endotracheal intubation in COPD patients with an episode of Acute Hypercapnic Respiratory Failure In this pilot physiological study we want to assess the safety and efficacy of this technique in reducing the PaCO2 level in those COPD patients with chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure non responding to chronic NIV.