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Only extreme degrees of endotracheal tube (ETT) narrowing can be detected with monitoring of tidal volume (V-T) during pressure-controlled ventilation (PCV). To assess the degree of ETT obstruction in PCV and to compare it to V,, monitoring, we produced 3 levels of partial ETT obstruction in 11 healthy anesthetized piglets using ETTs of 4 different inner diameters (IDs 9.0, 8.0, 7.0, and 6.0 mm). An expiratory flow over volume (<(V)over dot >(e)-V) curve was plotted and the time constant (tau(e)) at 15% of expiration time (T-e) was calculated. We also calculated the fractional volume expired during the first 15% of T-e (V-ex (fract, 15)) and compared those variables to full expiratory V, for each of the 3 obstructions. V-T monitoring failed to detect ETT narrowing. By contrast, V-ex (fract,15) decreased and tau(e)e increased significantly with increasing ETT narrowing (for IDs 9.0, 8.0, 7.0, and 6.0, mean V-ex (fract,15) was 195, 180, 146, and 134 mL respectively and mean tau(e) was 380, 491, 635, 794 ms for IDs 9.0, 8.0, 7.0, and 6.0 respectively). We conclude that when the elastic recoil that drives <(V)over dot >(e) is appropriately considered, analysis of <(V)over dot >(e) and V-ex (fract,15) detects partial ETT obstruction during PCV.