The usefulness of respiratory physiotherapy for the prevention of pulmonary complications after cardiac surgery remains unproved .
OBJECTIVE To assess whether respiratory physiotherapy prevents pulmonary complications after cardiac surgery .
Use of a nasal continuous positive airway pressure mask in the treatment of postoperative atelectasis in aortocoronary bypass surgery.
Pulmonary oxygen transfer , defined by PaO2/FIO2 , and radiologic presence of atelectasis were measured pre- , intra- , and postoperatively to postoperative day 9 in elective cardiac aortocoronary bypass surgical patients , who were r and omly allocated either to receive 18 h PEEP while on the ventilator followed by 12 h of nasal continuous positive airway pressure ( nasal CPAP ) or  to  be control subjects .  The two groups were comparable in age , sex , forced expiratory volume in 1 sec ( FEV1 ) , the ratio of FEV1 over forced vital capacity ( FVC ) , time on pump , units of blood transfused , New York Heart Association grading , and cardiac performance indices . The PaO2/FIO2 was significantly ( p less than .05 ) better from half an hour after extubation until 24 h postextubation in the nasal CPAP group , but was decreased for the remainder of the study in both groups . Incidence of atelectasis/consolidation was not different in both groups during the study period . We conclude that nasal CPAP is well tolerated as a treatment of hypoxemia in the immediate postoperative period of aortocoronary bypass patients . CPAP does not change the course of postoperative atelectasis
The usefulness of respiratory physiotherapy for the prevention of pulmonary complications after cardiac surgery remains unproved .
OBJECTIVE To assess whether respiratory physiotherapy prevents pulmonary complications after cardiac surgery .