Fig. 1

Planar imaging to assess aerosol lung deposition during invasive mechanical ventilation. The ventilator was equipped with a 160-cm, 22-mm inner-diameter ventilator circuit (IMMED, Bruxelles, Belgium) including a 7-cm proximal flow sensor (PFS, Hamilton Medical, Bonaduz, Switzerland) positioned between the Y-piece and the catheter mount, a protection filter and the vibrating-mesh nebulizer. The patient was in semirecumbent position at 15° with the head turned right to avoid the overlap of the thorax, the ventilator circuit and the gamma camera (at 10 cm of the sternum)