Recent case reports have shown that persistent hypoxia after the resuscitation of nearly-drowned patients is a major problem. PEEP ventilation could be successfully applied in such a condition. After PEEP valves for manually operated resuscitators became available, the question arose of how beneficial the immediate application of positive end expiratory pressure of 5 cm H2O would be for lungs damaged by either seawater or fresh water. This question was examined by means of standardized animal experiments.

Material and Methods

In four test groups comprising 34 randomly selected young pigs, either 25 ml fresh water/kg body weight, or else 12.5 ml salt water/kg body weight, were instilled by way of an endotracheal tube. This was followed by a period of apnea lasting 4 min and subsequent ventilation with 100% oxygen for a 2 hour period. The 32 animals which survived the first part of the experiment were then subjected to either PEEP or ZEEP ventilation therapy without further medication.