AIRVO is a medical device that delivers high-flow, warmed, and humidified air (with or without supplemental oxygen) through a nasal cannula. It’s used to support breathing in patients who can breathe on their own but need help getting enough oxygen or reducing the effort it takes to breathe. The device is manufactured by Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and comes in two versions: the AIRVO 2 for hospital use and the myAIRVO 2 for home use.
How AIRVO Works
Unlike a standard oxygen mask or basic nasal cannula, AIRVO pushes a much higher volume of air through your nose, typically between 10 and 60 liters per minute. That air is heated to body temperature (with settings at 31°C, 34°C, or 37°C) and fully humidified before it reaches you. The oxygen concentration can be adjusted anywhere from 21% (normal room air) up to 100%, depending on what you need.
This high-flow delivery does several things at once. It flushes out stale air from your nose and upper airway, so each breath pulls in more fresh oxygen. It creates a small amount of positive pressure in your airway, similar to what a CPAP machine does, which helps keep your airway open. And because the air is warm and moist, it’s far more comfortable than dry medical oxygen, which can irritate your nose and throat. The combined effect is that your lungs don’t have to work as hard with each breath.
Common Hospital Uses
In hospitals, AIRVO is most commonly used for patients experiencing acute respiratory failure, meaning the lungs suddenly can’t keep up with the body’s oxygen demands. This includes severe pneumonia, post-surgical breathing difficulty, and other conditions where a patient is struggling but doesn’t yet need a ventilator. It’s also used after a patient has been taken off a ventilator (post-extubation) to ease the transition back to independent breathing.
The FDA clearance for the device specifies it is “for the treatment of spontaneously breathing patients who would benefit from receiving high flow warmed and humidified respiratory gases,” including patients whose upper airway has been bypassed, such as those with a tracheostomy. Importantly, AIRVO is not a life-support device. It’s designed for patients who can still breathe on their own and requires continuous monitoring by medical staff.
Use in Children and Infants
AIRVO-style high-flow therapy has become increasingly popular in pediatric care, particularly for infants with bronchiolitis, a common viral lung infection. A Cochrane review pooling data from multiple studies found that infants on high-flow nasal cannula therapy had hospital stays roughly 0.65 days shorter than those on standard low-flow oxygen. They also needed about 14 fewer hours of oxygen therapy overall.
Perhaps most notably, high-flow therapy reduced the need for escalation to more intensive treatments (like CPAP or intubation) by 45% compared to standard oxygen. Within one hour, infants on high-flow showed a breathing rate about 4 breaths per minute slower than those on low-flow oxygen, and by four to six hours, that gap widened to over 6 breaths per minute. Heart rates also dropped more quickly, a sign of reduced respiratory distress.
Home Use for Chronic Lung Disease
The myAIRVO 2 is a smaller, quieter version designed for long-term use at home, primarily for people with severe COPD who experience frequent flare-ups. A study of COPD patients using high-flow therapy at home found meaningful improvements: exacerbations dropped by about 1.4 per year, hospital admissions fell by nearly one per year, and total days spent in the hospital decreased by about 7 days annually. For someone with severe COPD who might be hospitalized multiple times a year, those reductions are significant.
Home use typically involves wearing the nasal cannula for several hours a day, often during sleep. The warm, humidified airflow also helps keep mucus thin and easier to clear, which is a persistent challenge for people with chronic lung conditions.
AIRVO Compared to CPAP
For some patients, AIRVO serves as an alternative to CPAP, particularly when CPAP is poorly tolerated. CPAP requires a tight-fitting face mask that creates a seal over the nose or mouth, and many people find it uncomfortable or claustrophobic. AIRVO delivers therapy through small, open nasal prongs that sit just inside the nostrils, with no mask and no tight seal required.
This difference matters especially for children. In pediatric patients with obstructive sleep apnea who couldn’t tolerate CPAP, high-flow nasal cannula therapy corrected airflow limitation without the discomfort of high pressure or a face mask. There’s also a structural concern with long-term CPAP use in children: the constant pressure of a mask against the face has been linked to impaired midface development, a risk that the open-prong design of AIRVO avoids.
Safety Considerations
AIRVO is generally well tolerated, but there are a few important limitations to understand. The device does not detect if the nasal cannula becomes disconnected from the patient, and it will not sound an alarm if this happens. In a hospital, staff monitoring covers this gap, but at home it means the device will keep running whether or not you’re actually receiving the therapy.
Because AIRVO is not a life-support device, it should not be used as a substitute for mechanical ventilation in patients who cannot breathe adequately on their own. It’s designed for people who are breathing spontaneously but need support. The positive pressure it generates is mild and variable, depending on the flow rate and whether your mouth is open or closed, so it cannot replace the consistent, higher pressures delivered by CPAP or ventilators in patients who need them.