ARF in immunocompromised patients most often results from infections, pulmonary localization of the primary disease, or even postchemotherapy cardiogenic pulmonary edema. Treatment of such patients often requires intubation and mechanical ventilation. Avoidance of the infectious complications associated with IMV is particularly attractive in these high-risk patients, in whom this could be devastating, if not fatal. Results of randomized, controlled trials have proven the beneficial effects of NPPV in immunocompromised adult patients [52, 53] . Some case series reported the use of NPPV in the treatment of respiratory failure in immunocompromised children (Table 2 ) [23, 27, [33] [34] [35] [36] . The likelihood of NPPV success in immunocompromised children seems to be related rather to the type of pulmonary disease: the ETI avoidance rates varied from 40% for ARDS to 100% for pneumonia ( Table 2) .