Acute lung injury and its most severe presentation, acute respiratory distress syndrome, are a common denominator for several diseases which can lead to exaggerated lung inflammation. In the last years this variability has been ascribed, at least partially, to genetic issues. This study aims to review the role of the main genes involved in acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndro...

The relation between everyday discrimination and psychological distress was examined among 2,554 Latinos from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). Gender was tested as a moderator in the discrimination-distress relationship among the total sample and separately for the four Latino subgroups. Analyses showed that for the aggregated Latino sample, discrimination was associated wi...

I read with interest the article on prone ventilation in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) by GUÉRIN [1] in the European Respiratory Review. In this extensive review, the author elaborated on the rationale, evidence and limitations of the application of prone position in ARDS patients. It is understood that excellent research has been conducted on the topic of prone position ventilatio...

Despite its high incidence and devastating outcomes, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) has no specific treatment, with effective therapy currently limited to minimizing potentially harmful ventilation and avoiding a positive fluid balance. Many pharmacological therapies have been investigated with limited success to date. In this review article we provide a state-of-the-art update on r...

In this commentary, recent papers covering pandemic influenza, acute respiratory distress syndrome and cardiovascular issues are discussed.

In the previous issue of Critical Care, Gu and colleagues reported the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials comparing high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) with conventional ventilation in adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In contrast to findings of prior meta-analyses, their main finding was that, despite reducing risks of oxygenat...

A case of acute respiratory distress syndrome in a 79-year-old man is presented in which the use of a BioSurge synchronous autotransfuser may be implicated. This has not been reported before.

Phospholipids in specimens of amniotic fluid from 346 patients were quantified and the results evaluated in light of the clinical outcome. Fifty-eight neonates had respiratory distress syndrome. We used this data base to compare different statistical methods for evaluating test effectiveness and diagnostic discrimination. Dichotomizing quantitative tests into binary tests with arbitrary cutoff ...