Abstract
A 43-year-old female with ileus received resection of small intestine, and a 52-yearold male with bleeding gastric ulcer received gastrectomy. Both patients were operated at emergency situation under general anesthesia in a small private hospital. They had apparently smooth courses until the fifth postopertive day, when we found complete atelectasis of the left lung on chest X-ray films.
Because no bronchoscopes were available at that time, we treated the atelectases with following rather simple measures and fortunately obtained exellent effects.
At first balloon inflations were used in each case, and were satisfactory with this measures alone in the latter case. In the former case, bronchial lavage under endotracheal intubation followed by vibration of chest wall brought satisfactory result.
