“…Several studies observed a decrease in cardiac output, renal blood flow, GFR, sodium excretion and urinary flow when increasing ventilatory support [3,5,6,35,36,37]. In contrast to our patients breathing spontaneously with APRV, previous investigations have compared either unsupported spontaneous breathing with positive pressure ventilation [3,5,35] or spontaneous breathing at different CPAP levels [6,36]. Our results are in agreement with those of Steinhoff and coworkers [5,35], who observed improvement in renal function following switching from mechanical ventilation to spontaneous breathing with intermittent mandatory ventilation.…”