Modalities of ventilation in obesity.

Obesity is nowadays the most frequently found health risk in the USA, where more than 1 in 3 adults have a weight > or = 20% over the ideal value. Obese patients are more prone to developing sleep apnoea syndrome and obesity hypoventilation syndrome as well as more frequent postoperative complications. Thus, acute and chronic respiratory failure episodes represent current presentations in clinical practice where noninvasive ventilation is very efficient and must be guided by polysomnographic data in order to decide on long-term respiratory treatment to avoid recurrence of acute on chronic decompensation.