Introduction

Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a disease associated with high mortality. Understanding the interdependence of ventilator settings and respiratory mechanics is crucial for further developments of protective lung ventilation. Up to now, the nonlinearity of compliance has mainly been the focus of interest. We hypothesized that airway resistance also changes intratidally. Therefore, this study was performed to analyze the dependence of resistance on tidal gas volume.

Methods

After induction of anesthesia and tracheotomy, the lungs of 14 surfactant-depleted piglets were ventilated at zero end-expiratory pressure with three different tidal volumes (8, 12, 16 ml/kg) in a randomized order. In addition, baseline measurements (12 ml/kg) were performed before saline lavage. Before any change of the ventilator settings a recruitment maneuver was performed. The nonlinear intratidal airway resistance was analyzed using the SLICE method [1].

Results

Figure 1 shows the intratidal resistance before lavage (grey) and after surfactant depletion (black) plotted against the alveolar pressure. Each curve in the diagram represents the intratidal course of resistance for one ventilator setting. Resistance is increased after surfactant depletion and is intratidally declining before and after lavage.

figure 1

Figure 1

Conclusion

The analysis of resistance shows a dependence on intratidal volume. The nonlinear course of intratidal resistance can be interpreted as a volume-related caliber effect leading to an increase of cross-sectional area of the large and small airways.