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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Pressure Controlled Ventilation to Induce Acute Lung Injury in Mice
Published on: May 5, 2011
Animal model of unilateral ventilator-induced lung injury
Ramon Farre1, Susana Granell, Mar Rotger
1Unitat de Biofisica i Bioenginyeria, Facultat de Medicina, Universitat de Barcelona-IDIBAPS, Spain. rfarre@ub.edu
Objective:
To design, implement, and test a selective lung ventilator for setting a rat model of unilateral ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI).
Design And Setting:
Interventional animal study in a university laboratory for animal research.
Subjects:
Anesthetized and paralyzed male Wistar rats.
Interventions:
A selective ventilator designed to apply varying tidal volume, PEEP, and breathing gas to each lung of the rat was implemented and evaluated. Five control animals were ventilated at 7 ml/kg (3.5 ml/kg each lung). Unilateral VILI was induced in six animals subjected to selective ventilation (3.5 ml/kg in one lung and 15 ml/kg in the other lung). After 3 h of ventilation the animals were killed and the lungs excised.
Measurements And Results:
Lung edema was assessed by means of the ratio between wet and dry lung weights. No significant differences were found in lungs of control animals (5.16+/-0.22 and 4.96+/-0.25), but the W/D ratio in the over ventilated lung (8.98+/-3.80) was significantly greater than that in the normally ventilated lung (4.76+/-0.15), indicating selective induction of lung edema by over stretch.
Conclusions:
This selective ventilator can be implemented into a rat model of unilateral VILI to gain further insight into the mechanisms of pulmonary injury induced by different ventilatory strategies.
