Nitrous Oxide for Identifying the Intersegmental Plane in Segmentectomy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

During one-lung ventilation with an open chest, the nonventilated lung collapses initially due to elastic recoil, which quickly brings the lung down to its closing capacity. Remaining gas in the lung is then removed by absorption into the pulmonary capillary blood. The rapid diffusion properties of N2O（Blood gas distribution coefficient is 0.47）would be expected to speed lung collapse and so facilitate surgery. The previous study suggested that increasing the concentration of N2O in mixtures of N2O/O2 will lead to a faster rate of collapse. When using nitrous oxide in oxygen during lung ventilation, ongoing oxygen uptake by blood shunting will serve to increase the partial pressure of nitrous oxide in parts of the lung that are still expanded. This will soon result in a partial pressure gradient for nitrous oxide uptake also, with a consequent faster rate of lung collapse than would occur in a patient being ventilated with 100% oxygen.