Effect of protective lung ventilation strategy combined with lung recruitment maneuver in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of protective lung ventilation strategy combined with lung recruitment maneuver (RM) in the treatment patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Methods: Totally 74 patients with ARDS admitted to the Department of Intensive Care Unit, Changshu Second People's Hospital in Jiangsu Province between September 2010 and June 2013 were selected and randomly divided into lung recruitment group and non-lung recruitment group, and the initial ventilation solution for both groups was synchronized intermittent mandatory ventilation (SIMV). For RM, SIMV mode (pressure control and pressure support) was adopted. Positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) was increased by 5 cm H2O every time and maintained for 40-50 s before entering the next increasing period, and the peak airway pressure was kept below 45 cm H2O. After PEEP reached the maximum value, it was gradually reduced by 5 cm H2O every time and finally maintained at 15 cm H2O for 10 min. Results: A total of 74 patients with mean age of (49.0±18.6) years old were enrolled, 36 patients were enrolled in lung recruitment maneuver (RM) group and 38 patients were enrolled into non-lung recruitment maneuver (non-RM) group. 44 were male and accounted for 59.5% of all the patients. For the indicators such as PEEP, pressure support (PS), plateau airway pressure (Pplat), peak airway pressure (Ppeak), vital capacity (VC) and fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2), no statistical differences in the indicators were found between the RM group and non-RM group on D1, D3 and D7 (P>0.05), except that only FiO2 of RM group on D7 was significantly lower than that of non-RM group (47.2±10.0) vs. (52.2±10.5), P 0.05). 28-day mortality, ICU mortality and in-hospital mortality were 25% vs. 28.9%, 25% vs. 26.3% and 36.1% vs. 39.5% respectively between RM group and non-RM group (all P>0.05). Conclusion: Protective lung ventilation strategy combined with lung recruitment maneuver can improve the indicators such as PaO2, FiO2 and PaO2/FiO2 on D7, but failed to improve the final outcomes such as 28-day mortality, ICU mortality and in-hospital mortality.