Assessment of Salbutamol Effect on Arterial Oxygenation in COPD Patients During One-lung Ventilation

One-lung ventilation (OLV) is essential part of anesthesia during thoracic procedures. However, OLV induces a drastic increase of intrapulmonary shunt due to maintained pulmonary perfusion through the nonventilated lung, which may result in severe hypoxemia. Although the protective mechanisms of hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction favorably modulate pulmonary perfusion to the ventilated lung, the effect is attenuated in patients with history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which alters compliance of the pulmonary artery. Salbutamol is a selective short-acting beta2-agonist and when inhaled during OLV, it acts selectively on the pulmonary vasculature reducing pulmonary vascular resistance of well-ventilated lung. We hypothesized that inhaled salbutamol would alleviate ventilation-perfusion mismatch during OLV of COPD patients, and aimed to assess the effects of salbutamol on oxygenation in these patients.