Figure 1From: Ventilation with lower tidal volumes as compared with conventional tidal volumes for patients without acute lung injury: a preventive randomized controlled trialFlow diagram summarizing inclusion, allocation, and analysis. 347 patients were eligible for the study; 94 patients were excluded because of participation in another clinical trial (n = 49), use of immunosuppressive agents (n = 22), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n = 11), prior pneumectomy or lobectomy (n = 5), interstitial lung disease (n = 4), and pulmonary thromboembolism (n = 3); 93 patients refused informed consent, and in eight patients, participation in the trial was denied by the attending physician.Back to article page