Anegundi SS, Kurdi MS, Sutagatti JG, Theerth KA. Role of lung ultrasound in assessing positive end expiratory pressure induced lung recruitment in patients on mechanical ventilation. World J Crit Care Med 2025; 14(3): 102609 [DOI: 10.5492/wjccm.v14.i3.102609]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Madhuri S Kurdi, MD, Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi 580022, Karnataka, India. drmadhuri_kurdi@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Critical Care Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Crit Care Med. Sep 9, 2025; 14(3): 102609 Published online Sep 9, 2025. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v14.i3.102609
Role of lung ultrasound in assessing positive end expiratory pressure induced lung recruitment in patients on mechanical ventilation
Shreyas S Anegundi, Madhuri S Kurdi, Jagadish G Sutagatti, Kaushik A Theerth
Shreyas S Anegundi, Jagadish G Sutagatti, Department of Radio-Diagnosis, Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi 580022, Karnataka, India
Madhuri S Kurdi, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi 580022, Karnataka, India
Kaushik A Theerth, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Medical Trust Hospital, Ernakulam 682016, Kerala, India
Author contributions: Anegundi SS, Kurdi MS designed the study; Anegundi SS and Sutagattti JG conducted the study; Kurdi MS supervised the study; Theerth KA wrote the study and contributed to the analysis.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi-580022, Karnataka, India.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items—and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at drmadhuri_kurdi@yahoo.com.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Madhuri S Kurdi, MD, Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi 580022, Karnataka, India. drmadhuri_kurdi@yahoo.com
Received: November 4, 2024 Revised: January 28, 2025 Accepted: February 21, 2025 Published online: September 9, 2025 Processing time: 268 Days and 9.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Increasing positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) in titrated doses is a recruitment strategy aimed at improving oxygenation. The effectiveness of PEEP can vary across different lung pathologies and may not always correlate with changes in lung aeration as assessed by lung ultrasound scores (LUSs). In this study, the effect of incremental PEEP levels (5 cm H2O intervals) was evaluated in mechanically ventilated patients with various lung pathologies. Significant improvement in LUS in the posteroinferior zone was observed, along with a simultaneous increase in oxygen saturation. Minimal PEEP was sufficient for lung recruitment in postoperative patients, whereas patients with alveolar filling defects and restrictive lung diseases required higher PEEP levels.
