Pure oxygen ventilation during general anaesthesia does not result in increased postoperative respiratory morbidity but decreases surgical site infection. An observational clinical study

Background. Pure oxygen ventilation during anaesthesia is debatable, as it may lead to development of atelectasis. Rationale of the study was to demonstrate the harmlessness of ventilation with pure oxygen. Methods. This is a single-centre, one-department observational trial. Prospectively collected routine-data of 76,784 patients undergoing general, gynaecological, orthopaedic, and vascular surgery during 1995–2009 were retrospectively analysed. Postoperative hypoxia, unplanned ICU-admission, surgical site infection (SSI), postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), and hospital mortality were continuously recorded. During 1996 the anaesthetic ventilation for all patients was changed from 30…