TY - JOUR T1 - Electrical Impedance Tomographic Mapping of Hypoventilated Lung Areas in Intubated Patients With COVID-19 JF - Respiratory Care SP - 773 LP - 776 DO - 10.4187/respcare.10261 VL - 68 IS - 6 AU - Débora S Caetano AU - Caio CA Morais AU - Wagner S Leite AU - Rômulo de Aquino C Lins AU - Kyle J Medeiros AU - Rodrigo A Cornejo AU - Armèle Dornelas de Andrade AU - Shirley L Campos AU - Daniella C Brandão Y1 - 2023/06/01 UR - http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/68/6/773.abstract N2 - Since the first description of ARDS, bilateral alveolar infiltrates on chest radiography have been recognized as characteristic of this syndrome, combined with hypoxemia and low respiratory system compliance ().1 Due to its simplicity, chest radiography is still a pillar of the actual ARDS definition.2 However, only the advance to chest computed tomography (CT) allowed clinicians to precisely identify the site of lung disease, revealing the heterogeneous distribution of lung injury in patients with ARDS.3,4 As with previous ARDS descriptions, CT studies reported a variety of areas with pulmonary involvement in subjects with COVID-19,5,6 such as multilobar ground-glass opacities and consolidation located mainly in the gravity-dependent regions.The use of a chest CT to phenotype ARDS as a focal or non-focal disease is also advocated to allow personalized mechanical ventilation.7 However, the use of CT is limited by the ionizing radiation and the need for patient transfer.8 In this scenario, electrical impedance tomography (EIT) has been used at the bedside to monitor pulmonary function in real time during mechanical ventilation.9,10 In this report, we aimed to describe the distribution pattern of hypoventilated regions (ie, areas with deteriorated lung function) in patients with COVID-19–related ARDS under invasive mechanical ventilation with the use of EIT. In addition, we assessed the relationship between the distribution pattern of hypoventilated regions with CRS and gas exchange (PaO2/FIO2).This study is a secondary analysis of a clinical trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov, NCT 05024500) that consecutively monitored subjects with EIT who had been admitted to a tertiary ICU from October 2020 to June 2021. All the subjects were ventilated in the volume-controlled mode (tidal volume of 6 mL/kg of predicted body … Correspondence: Daniella C Brandão PhD, Physiotherapy Department, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Av. Jorn. Aníbal Fernandes, 173, Recife, Pernambuco 50740-560, Brazil. E-mail: daniella.brandao{at}ufpe.br ER -