Traditionally, adequate tidal volume is considered to be a necessary condition to support respiratory patient breathing. But the high frequency ventilation (HFV) with a small tidal volume can still support the respiratory patient breathing well. In order to further explore the mechanisms of HFV, the pendelluft ventilation between left and right lungs was proposed in this paper. And a test platform by using two fresh sheep lungs was developed for investigating the pendelluft ventilation between the left and right lungs. Furthermore, considering the viscous resistance (R), inertance (I) and lung compliance (C) in the lung, a second-order lung ventilation model was designed to inspect and evaluate the pendelluft ventilation between left lung and right lungs. On referring to both results of experiments in practice and simulation in MATLAB Simulink, between the left and right lungs, the phase difference in their airflow happens during HFV at some frequencies. And the pendelluft ventilation between the left and right lungs is resulted by the phase difference, even if the total airflow entering a whole lung is 0. Under HFV, the pendelluft ventilation between left and right lungs will benefit the lungs being more adequately ventilated, and will be improve the utilization rate of oxygen in the lungs.
The high frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is characterized with low tidal volume and low mean airway pressure, and can well support the breathing of the patients with respiratory diseases. Since the HFOV was proposed, it has been widely concerned by medical and scientific researchers. About the HFOV, this paper discussed its current research status and prospected its future development in technologies. The research status of ventilation model, mechanisms and ventilation mode were introduced in detail. In the next years, the technologies in developing HFOV will be focused on: to develop the branched high-order nonlinear or volume-depended resistance-inertance-compliance (RIC) ventilation model, to fully understand the mechanisms of HFOV and to achieve the noninvasive HFOV. The development in technologies of HFOV will be beneficial to the patients with respiratory diseases who failed with conventional mechanical ventilation as one of considerable ventilation methods.