Objective: To determine the effects of different one-lung ventilation modes on the pulmonary function and serum inflammatory responses of elderly patients undergoing esophageal cancer radical operations during the perioperative period. Methods: A total of 118 patients undergoing esophageal cancer operations were enrolled and randomly assigned to a control group and an observation group (n=59 each). The patients in the observation group were treated with pressure-controlled ventilation, and the patients in the control group were treated with conventional volume-controlled ventilation. The following indexes of the two groups were analyzed and compared: the average peak airway pressure (Ppeak) before the operations (T0), after 30 min of one-lung ventilation (T1), after 60 min of one-lung ventilation (T2), and after another 30 min of two-lung ventilation (T3), the oxygenation indexes and the inflammatory factors (interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-8 (IL-8)) before and after the operations, and the postoperative pulmonary infection scores. Results: At T1, T2, and T3, the average Ppeak of the observation group was lower than it was in the control group (P < 0.05). In addition, after the operations, the observation group showed higher oxygenation indexes and lower IL-6 and IL-8 levels in the peripheral blood than the control group and also had a lower pulmonary infection score than the control group (all P < 0.05). Conclusion: Pressure-controlled ventilation can effectively lower the airway pressure, the inflammatory factor levels, and the lung infection scores for elderly patients undergoing esophageal cancer operations, so it can protect the pulmonary function of the patients in clinical practice to a certain extent.
