EIT provided beat-to-beat approximations of pulmonary perfusion that significantly correlated to a wide range of SV values achieved during both extra and intrapulmonary interventions to change cardiac output.

Introduction Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) can be used to measure impedance changes related to the thoracic content of air and blood. Few studies, however, have utilised EIT to make concurrent measurements of ventilation and perfusion. This experimental study was performed to investigate the feasibility of EIT to describe ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) matching after acute changes of pulmonary perfusion and aeration.

EIT can be used to assess the heterogeneity of regional pulmonary ventilation and perfusion and V/Q matching during endotoxinaemic ALI, identifying pivotal pathophysiological changes.

Acute endotoxemia induces a prompt, marked and regionally differentiated pro-fibrinolytic response that cannot be discerned based on systemic levels of circulating tPA and that was normalized during volume resuscitation.

Plasma changes of tPA levels support a pulmonary release of tPA in early experimental ALI induced by acute ETX but not lavage, and are related to the inflammatory response. Despite increased vascular fibrinolytic capacity in ETX animals, pulmonary dysfunction was not different from BAL animals. The results demonstrate the close relation between inflammation and coagulation in early ALI.