Keywords
Intensive Care Units
Airway Extubation
Respiration Artificial
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Abstract
Objective: To analyze palliative extubation in intensive care units (ICU), considering clinical foundations, decision-making, symptom management, family support, care-related challenges and research gaps. Bibliographic review: The literature describes it as a strategy associated with clinical irreversibility, involving withdrawal of mechanical ventilation without proportional expectation of recovery, while requiring active symptom control, structured communication with family members, and multidisciplinary support. It is observed that adults and children exhibit differences in strategies for weaning from ventilatory support and in comfort monitoring, with a predominance of observational studies, case series, and single-center studies in the available literature. Final considerations: Palliative extubation is a growing clinical practice, but one that lacks studies with greater methodological robustness. It is noticeable that the available scientific production remains limited and heterogeneous, but it shows consistent themes related to shared decision-making, symptom control, family support, and institutional organization, capable of supporting future research.
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