Respiratory failure

Respiratory failure is a clinical syndrome caused by various factors that lead to severe impairment of pulmonary ventilation and/or gas exchange function, resulting in the inability to perform effective gas exchange, leading to hypoxia with or without carbon dioxide retention, thereby causing a series of physiological functional and metabolic disturbances. At sea-level atmospheric pressure, when breathing room air under resting conditions, and after excluding intracardiac anatomical shunts and conditions of primary decreased cardiac output, arterial oxygen partial pressure (PaO2) below 8 kPa (60 mmHg), or accompanied by carbon dioxide partial pressure (PaCO2) above 6.65 kPa (50 mmHg), constitutes respiratory failure (abbreviated as RF). It is a state of functional impairment rather than a disease; it can be caused by pulmonary diseases leading to respiratory failure, or it may be a complication of various diseases.