Sigh Ventilation in Cardiac Surgery

Sigh breaths were added by elevating PEEP, targeting a plateau pressure of 35 cmH2O (or 40 cmH2O for patients with a Body Mass Index \> 35 kg/m2). These sigh breaths were administered once every 6 minutes at predefined stages in the perioperative period from the time of anesthesia intubation until endotracheal extubation, postoperative day 7, or death, whichever occurred first, but not during transport. Each sigh consisted of the minimum number of respiratory cycles aimed to achieve a total duration of at least 5 seconds, based on the respiratory cycle duration preset on the ventilator.

6-8ml/kg predicted body weight

PEEP set according to ARDSnet low PEEP- fraction of inspired oxygen table, FiO2 was set as the lowest fraction targeted to maintain SpO2 ≥ 96%