Effects of early administration of acetazolamide on the duration of mechanical ventilation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: still far from the truth?

In this study, Rialp Cervera et al. (1) have randomly assigned patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) with acute respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation (MV) <72 h to receive either acetazolamide 500 mg or placebo.