Driving Pressure and Postoperative Pulmonary Complications in Thoracic Surgery

Pulmonary complications are the most common complication in thoracic surgery and the leading cause of mortality.Therefore, lung protection is utmost important, and protective ventilation is strongly recommended in thoracic surgery. Protective ventilation is a prevailing ventilatory strategy in these days and is comprised of small tidal volume, limited inspiratory pressure, and application of positive end-expiratory pressure. However, several retrospective studies recently suggested that tidal volume, inspiratory pressure, and positive end-expiratory pressure are not related to patient outcomes, or only related when they influenced the driving pressure. Recently, the investigators reported the first prospective study about the driving pressure-guided ventilation in thoracic surgery. PEEP was titrated to bring the lowest driving pressure in each patient and applied throughout the one lung ventilation. The application of individualized PEEP reduced the incidence of pulmonary complications.However, that study was small size single center study with 312 patients. Thus, investigators try to perform large scale multicenter study. Through this study investigators evaluate that driving pressure-guided ventilation can reduce the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications compared with conventional protective ventilation in thoracic surgery.