Alveolar recruitment during mechanical ventilation – Where are we in 2013?

SummaryLung recruitment maneuvers have gained popularity over the last years. Their main goal is to overcome lung collapse in order to improve lung function and to decrease the chance of developing ventilator-induced lung injury. Current evidence suggests that such damage can also be observed in healthy lungs that are being mechanically ventilated as during anesthesia. Therefore, recruitment maneuvers could be part of a global protective ventilatory strategy for all ventilated patients. However, many questions like which is the best way to recruit partially collapsed lungs, how much collapsed tissue can be recruited, at which airway pressure and for how long these maneuvers should remain are unanswered. This review attempts to summarize what is known about lung recruitment maneuvers to date.