Maurizio Cereda1, Yi Xin2, Kiarash Emami2, Stephen J. Kadlecek2, Puttisarn Mongkolwisetwara2, Harrilla Profka2, Stephen Pickup2, Clifford S. Deutschman1, Rahim R. Rizi
1Anesthesiology and Critical Care, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Surfactant depletion causes atelectasis and predisposes subjects to ventilator associated lung injury due to harmful pulmonary airspace dilatation, as detected by increased 3He apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). Utilizing positive end expiratory pressure and surfactant administration as alveolar recruitment techniques could protect the lungs from injury. The presented result in rats shows that the combination of these two techniques synergistically restores normal airspace size by the effect of reducing ADC value to baseline.