• Ary Serpa Neto, Marcus J Schultz, and Marcelo Gama de Abreu.
• Department of Critical Care Medicine, Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil; Program of Post-Graduation, Research and Innovation, Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, Santo André, Brazil; Department of Intensive Care, Academic Medical Center at The University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: aryserpa@terra.com.br.
• Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol. 2015 Sep 1; 29 (3): 331-40.

AbstractFor many years, mechanical ventilation with high tidal volumes (V(T)) was common practice in operating theaters because this strategy recruits collapsed lung tissue, improves ventilation-perfusion mismatch, and thus decreases the need for high oxygen fractions. Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) was seldom used because it could cause cardiac compromise. Increasing advances in the understanding of the mechanisms of ventilator-induced lung injury from animal studies and randomized controlled trials in patients with uninjured lungs in intensive care unit and operation room have pushed anesthesiologists to consider lung-protective strategies during intraoperative ventilation. These strategies at least include the use of low V(T), and perhaps also the use of PEEP, which when compared to high V(T) with low PEEP may prevent the occurrence of postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs). Such protective effects, however, are likely ascribed to low V(T) rather than to PEEP. In fact, at least in nonobese patients undergoing open abdominal surgery, high PEEP does not protect against PPCs, and it can impair the hemodynamics. Further studies shall determine whether a strategy consisting of low V(T) combined with PEEP and recruitment maneuvers reduces PPCs in obese patients and other types of surgery (e.g., laparoscopic and thoracic), compared to low V(T) with low PEEP. Furthermore, the role of driving pressure for titrating ventilation settings in patients with uninjured lungs shall be investigated.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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