Prone positioning improves oxygenation in spontaneous breathing nonintubated patients with hypoxemic acute respiratory failure: A retrospective study.

This is a retrospective case series describing 15 non-intubated patients with hypoxemic respiratory failure who underwent proning.​1​

In general, most patients had pneumonia (13/15), were immunocompromised (8/15), never required intubation (13/15), and survived (12/15).

Proning was performed 43 times, a median of twice per patient.

Oxygen was most often provided with a facemask, BiPAP mask, or helmet CPAP.

Proning was performed for a median of 3 hours and a maximum of 8 hours.

During eighteen proning procedures, the patient was maintained on the same amount of respiratory support throughout the entire procedure.

Proning improved oxygenation, but this benefit was only transient.

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