Effect of oscillation and lung expansion on postop pulmonary complications

Editor's Note

In this study, aggressive pulmonary treatment after surgery with oscillation and lung expansion (OLE) reduced the rate of postoperative pulmonary complications in high-risk patients having open thoracic, aortic, or upper abdominal surgery.

A total of 419 patients (209 with OLE treatment and 210 without) were included in the analysis.

Treatment with OLE decreased:

• postoperative pulmonary complications from 22.9% to 15.8%
• ventilator time from 23.7 to 8.5 hours
• hospital length of stay from 8.4 to 6.8 days.

There were no differences in ICU length of stay, cases of pneumonia, or mortality.

The findings suggest that OLE may contribute significantly to greater value-based quality of care, the researchers say.