posted on 2020-05-22, 09:40authored byMELISSA HELENE PREISSNER
When the lungs begin to fail, mechanical ventilation is a life-saving intervention. However, mechanical ventilation can also damage the delicate structures in the lung, known as ventilator-induced lung injury. The risk increases substantially when the lungs are in a pathological state, such as with acute respiratory distress syndrome, where hospital mortality remains unacceptably high. In this PhD thesis, a recent development in laboratory-based, dynamic X-ray CT imaging, combined with customised image analysis, is used to investigate changes to the delicate structures in the mechanically-ventilated mouse lung, in order to better understand ventilator-induced lung injury.