Correlation of Survival in Puerperae by Electrical Impedance Tomography

A prospective longitudinal clinical-experimental study was carried out in which 30 postpartum / postpartum women who developed complications of their clinical condition, needing support by invasive mechanical ventilation, development of sepsis with pulmonary repercussion, Specific Pregnancy Disease ( SDP), HELLP syndrome or ARDS were evaluated and monitored with Electrical Impedance Tomography for conduction of ventilatory therapy. In order to obtain the images and quantification of the regional ventilatory distribution, two tapes with 16 electrodes were connected by means of an adhesive tape, one for each band, around the thorax and aligned in a plane corresponding to a cross section with emission of an electric current imperceptible and harmless to the patient, generating, according to the pulmonary dynamics, a variation of electrical impedance, consequently a gradient of electrical resistivity. A flow sensor positioned between the endotracheal tube and the "Y" of the ventilator circuit, responsible for capturing ventilatory mechanic information, and a reference cable positioned by an electrocardiographic monitoring electrode, in the abdominal region or in the region from the shoulders. The data were sent simultaneously to a system (computer) with specific softwear in order to measure and quantify the regional distribution of pulmonary ventilation and perfusion, as well as its correlation in patients under mechanical ventilation. All experimental values were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD). The study was of the experimental type, and the descriptive statistic was used to characterize the sample. Statistical analysis was performed with GraphPad Prism 5.0. The P value \<0.05 was considered statistically significant. The results were placed in spreadsheets and graphs created with GraphPad Prism 5.0 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, California, USA).