Biological impact of different ventilatory strategies during open abdominal surgery in a rat model.

Introduction 234 million major surgical procedures are performed worldwide every year. It has been shown that a ventilator strategy with low tidal volume (VT), high positive endexpiratory pressure (PEEP) and recruitment maneuvers (RM)s compared to low VT and low PEEP without RM did not protect against postoperative pulmonary complications [1]. So far, no study has evaluated the biological impact of these ventilator strategies in lung tissue during open abdominal surgery. We hypothesized that low VT and low PEEP without RM may result in less biological impact in lung tissue compared to a ventilator strategy with low VT, high PEEP and RMs.