Background: сardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with a high risk of postoperative respiratory complications. Perioperative damage to the lungs due to ischemia and reperfusion, mechanical ventilation, trauma, etc., on the one hand, is a trigger for aseptic inflammation in the lungs, on the other hand, it makes compromised lungs an easy target for infection. Actively developed methods of “protecting” of the lungs, protective lungs ventilation, etc. are limited to the perioperative and “resuscitation” stages and do not exhaust the entire range of respiratory support, in particular, required in the later stages of postoperative hospitalization, which dictates the need to search for methods of respiratory rehabilitation even after transfer from the intensive care unit.
Aims: evaluate the effectiveness of respiratory rehabilitation of cardiosurgical patients using non-invasive mask lung ventilation (NIMLV) performed outside the intensive care unit (ICU), compared with standard breathing exercises.
Materials and methods: A prospective, randomized, single-center study included 60 patients aged 62±12 years after cardiac surgery with CPB (86±17 min) with bypass grafting of 2±1 coronary arteries, aged 62±12 years, who required mechanical lung ventilation for more than 6 hours after surgery. After transfer from the ICU, patients in the control group (n=30) underwent standard respiratory rehabilitation; patients in the main group (n=30) additionally received four sessions of NIMLV.
Results: Patients in the main group had a more rapid recovery of respiratory function, which made it possible to reduce the time of postoperative hospitalization (10 (8; 15)) in comparison with the standard group (14 (13; 20)).
Conclusions: The use of NIMLV outside the ICU in addition to the standard respiratory activation protocol is safe and allows you to speed up the process of respiratory rehabilitation, reduce the duration of postoperative hospitalization of patients after coronary bypass surgery.