The aim of the study was to examine the post-operative ventilation distribution changes in cardiac surgical patients after traditional full sternotomy (FS) or minimally invasive thoracotomy (MIT).

A total of 40 patients scheduled for FS with two-lung ventilation or MIT with one-lung ventilation were included. Ventilation distribution was measured with electrical impedance tomography (EIT) at T1, before surgery; T2, after surgery in ICU before weaning; T3, 24 hours after extubation. EIT-based parameters were calculated to assess the ventilation distribution, including the left-to-right lung ratio, ventral-to-dorsal ratio and the global inhomogeneity index.

The global inhomogeneity index increased at T2 and T3 compared to T1 in all patients but only statistically significant in patients with MIT (FS, p=0.06; MIT, p<0.01).

Notable decrease in the dorsal regions (FS) or in the non-ventilated side (MIT) was observed at T2. Ventilation distribution was partially improved at T3 but huge variations of recovery progresses were found in all patients regardless of the surgery types.

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