A Pressure Targeted Approach to Ventilating

Recent interest in techniques for ventilating patients with acute lung injury has been driven by an evolving knowledge of respiratory mechanics (Chapter 15) and by recognition of the potential for iatrogenic lung damage. The need for protracted mechanical ventilation is associated with infection, multisystem organ dysfunction and increased mortality Even when overt alveolar rupture does not occur, excessive stretching forces applied repeatedly to normal lungs increase capillary permeability and initiate hemorrhage or inflammation [1,2]. In view of this, investigators and clinicians have begun to reconsider the fundamental objectives of mechanical ventilation and to design ventilatory modes to accomplish these revised goals more effectively