Abstract

Advances in neonatal care have led to significant improvement in the survival of preterm infants but chronic lung disease (CLD) continues to be a major problem [1]. Many factors have been linked to the development of CLD [2] and a great deal of research has focussed on those that are potentially amenable to intervention. Ventilator induced lung injury (VILI) has been extensively studied. Initially barotrauma was seen as being of major importance in the aetiology of VILI; however, increasing evidence has suggested that excessive volume, leading to overexpansion (volutrauma) and inadequate volume leading to underexpansion/collapse are more important aetiologically. [3-6].