Fig. 5

Microbiology assessments. Pink lines, dots and boxes represent animals from the pneumonia-with-VILI group, and the green ones represent those animals from the pneumonia-without-VILI group. A After pneumonia diagnosis and antibiotic start, Pseudomonas aeruginosa concentration in tracheal secretions decreased (p = 0.007), more evident in animals with VILI. B With respect to BAL fluids, the burden decreased throughout the study (p = 0.001). C In lung tissue, mean values resulted below 3 log CFU/mL after having received 8.2 ± 0.9, 3 ± 0.4 and 7 ± 0.7 doses of meropenem, levofloxacin and ceftriaxone, respectively. Abbreviations: ARDS: acute respiratory distress syndrome; CFU: colony-forming units; VILI: ventilator-induced lung injury. Pulmonary lobes: RUL, right upper lobe; RML, right medium lobe; RLL-D, right lower lobe-dependent; RLL-ND, right lower lobe-non-dependent; LUL, left upper lobe; LLL-D, left lower lobe-dependent; LLL-ND, left lower lobe-non-dependent. Data are reported as mean ± standard error. # ARDS diagnosis time point in the pneumonia-without-VILI group corresponds to 30 h from inoculum, which is the median time from inoculum to ARDS diagnosis in the pneumonia-with-VILI group. This equivalence needed to be done for comparison reasons because the pneumonia-without-VILI group never met the Berlin criteria for ARDS diagnosis. *p < 0.05