OBJECTIVE To review the current support and treatment strategies of the acute respiratory distress syndrome. DATA SOURCES Original data from our research laboratory and from representative scientific articles on acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute lung Injury searched through Medline. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS Despite advances in the understanding of the pathogenesis of acute respir...

Acute respiratory distress syndrome is characterized by an acute pulmonary inflammatory process induced by the presence of a direct (pulmonary) insult that affects lung parenchyma, or an indirect (extrapulmonary) insult that results from an acute systemic inflammatory response. It is believed that an efficient therapy for the acute respiratory distress syndrome should attenuate inflammatory res...

The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a serious and complex clinical problem that often threatens the lives of patients. Emerging clinical data suggest that the survival of patients with this disorder may have improved during the last two decades, presumably because of advances in supportive medical care. Among the supportive therapies used to treat patients with ARDS, none is more ...

ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISTRESS SYNDROME (ARDS) is a clinical condition characterized by impaired gas exchange as a result of the accumulation of edema in the alveolar space. The clinical management of ARDS patients includes mechanical ventilation with high oxygen concentrations. Mechanical ventilation alleviates the work of breathing and hypoxemia while allowing time for the lungs to recover from t...

VALID AND RELIABLE DEFINItions are essential to conduct epidemiological studies successful ly and to facilitate enrollment of a consistent patient phenotype into clinical trials. Clinicians also need such definitions to implement the results of clinical trials, discuss prognosis with families, and plan resource allocation. Following the initial description of acute respiratory distress syndrome...

ACCP Critical Care Board Review 2003 T acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and the related acute lung injury (ALI) syndromes are forms of Type I or acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF). This form of lung dysfunction rises from diseases causing collapse and/or filling of alveoli with the result that a substantial fraction of mixed venous blood traverses nonventilated airspaces, effe...

INTRODUCTION Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is characterised by lung inflammation with severe hypoxia, which usually develops over 4-48 hours and persists for days or weeks. The main causes of ARDS are infections, aspiration of gastric contents, and trauma. Between a third and a half of people with ARDS die from the disease, but mortality depends on the underlying cause. Some surviv...

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a clinical syndrome of severe dyspnea of rapid onset, hypoxemia, and diffuse pulmonary infiltrates leading to respiratory failure. ARDS is caused by diffuse lung injury from many underlying medical and surgical disorders. The lung injury may be direct, as occurs in toxic inhalation, or indirect, as occurs in sepsis ( Table 268-1 ) . The clinical fea...

VALID AND RELIABLE DEFINItions are essential to conduct epidemiological studies successful ly and to facilitate enrollment of a consistent patient phenotype into clinical trials. Clinicians also need such definitions to implement the results of clinical trials, discuss prognosis with families, and plan resource allocation. Following the initial description of acute respiratory distress syndrome...