Prevention of Acute Respiratory Failure by Optimal Ventilator Settings: The Open Lung Concept

The introduction of artificial ventilation into clinical practice opened up completely new horizons in the fields of anaesthesia and intensive care medicine; however this very ventilation, which is supposed to take over the respiratory function, is being blamed for acute respiratory failure. High peak pressures and tidal volumes are regarded as the main causes of such ventilation-induced lung damage [1–3]. Clinically this can lead to a surfactant damage and a tendency for the lungs to collapse [4].