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Donation after cardiac death (DCD) is one of the growing strategies to overcome the problem of organ shortage. Cardiac death is defined as "irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory function"; the time interval to define irreversibility of cardiac death, the peculiarity of consent, and the framework of end-of-life decision making are the most compelling ethical issues which have been raised with DCD. National protocols that balance medical, ethical, and social issues are mandatory to guide transplant care professionals. In Italy, the 20 min cardiac arrest demonstrated by continuous electrocardiography recording is the time interval necessary for death diagnosis based on cardiopulmonary criteria. This time negatively affects donation after cardiac death because warm ischemic time (WIT) - the most important predictor of grafts' poor outcome - is prolonged. However, this time seems to be prudential to define the irreversibility of death and to respect the "dead donor rule", as established by the National Committee of Bioethics. National reference protocols regulating DCD practice are therefore a compelling issue.

Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) has gained increasing acceptance over the years to reduce endotracheal intubation, pneumonia and to prevent or treat respiratory failure in patients with different diagnoses. The international consensus conference, and the British society guidelines on NIV ventilation have analyzed its use during the weaning phase concluding that there were still conflicting results of its use. However, recent clinical trials have shown clear clinical benefits on the use of NIV in several patient populations during the weaning period. Acute respiratory failure (ARF) during the weaning process is the main object of recently published studies. The latest published randomized trials on the application of NIV for acute respiratory failure following extubation failed to demonstrate any favorable outcome. Even so, the use of NIV during the process of weaning in patients experiencing multiple weaning failure or as a preventive therapy in patients at higher risk of respiratory deterioration showed improved clinical outcomes only in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and in particular in hypercapnic patients. Reduced invasive mechanical ventilation, tracheostomy and lower mortality rate at 90 days were the major advantages.