Recruitment manoeuvres (RMs) were conducted with continuous positive airway pressure on 41 ventilated patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The results showed that repeated RMs during lung-protected ventilation can improve pulmonary compliance and oxygenation and significantly decrease extravascular lung water in ARDS patients. Lung injury was not worsened by repeated RMs in patients with severe ARDS.

General-epidural anaesthesia can stabilize perioperative haemodynamics, reduce the consumption of general anaesthesia and simultaneously shorten extubation time, indicating that it is a feasible and ideal anaesthetic method at present.