ABSTRACT
Multiple rib fracture is a common chest injury that can cause severe pain and seriously affect life quality of the patients. The traditional pulmonary function test can only assess changes in total lung volume and ventilation of the multiple rib fracture, but fails to reveal regional ventilation status in rib fracture area and ventilation differences within the whole lung. Instead, pulmonary electrical impedance tomography (EIT), as a novel bedside technique for ventilation monitoring, has advantages of non-invasiveness, non-use of radiative rays and dynamic visualization of regional ventilation, enabling to quantify ventilation defects and heterogeneity in space and time. Starting with the assessment of ventilation changes and research status of ventilation function in multiple rib fracture and the characteristics of EIT, the authors review the research progress in the evaluation of ventilation function following multiple rib fracture based on EIT, with the aim to provide new insight into the research on ventilation changes after multiple rib fracture.