REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1661569
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Mechanical Ventilation: Understanding Physiology to Mitigate ComplicationsView all 11 articles
High-Flow Nasal Cannula Oxygen Therapy: Physiological Basis and Clinical Applications in Anaesthesia
Provisionally accepted
- Chengdu Wenjiang District People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) oxygen therapy, a non-invasive respiratory support modality, has gained increasing attention for its advantages in perioperative care. This review outlines the basic components and key physiological effects of HFNC, including apneic oxygenation, positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), reduction of anatomical dead space, enhanced end-expiratory lung volume, accurate oxygen delivery, and active humidification. These mechanisms support its application across multiple perioperative phases, such as tracheal intubation, sedation for endoscopic procedures, upper airway surgeries, extubation, and recovery. HFNC has also shown promise in specific patient populations, including the obese, pregnant, and pediatric patients. Although its clinical benefits and safety profile are well recognized, further studies are needed to clarify its indications, refine device settings, and explore its integration with other respiratory strategies. This review aims to summarize current clinical applications and recent developments of HFNC in anesthesia practice, providing both theoretical context and practical recommendations for its standardized use.
Keywords: HFNC, Physiological mechanisms, Perioperative Care, Special populations, Anesthesia practice
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Liu, Qu, Liu, Xiao, Yang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hongyan Zhang, Chengdu Wenjiang District People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China
Yanling Yang, Chengdu Wenjiang District People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China
Liu Xu, Chengdu Wenjiang District People’s Hospital, Chengdu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.