Treatment
Acute respiratory distress syndrome is usually treated with mechanical ventilation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ventilation is usually delivered through oro-tracheal intubation, or tracheostomy whenever prolonged ventilation (≥2 weeks) is deemed inevitable.
The possibilities of non-invasive ventilation are limited to the very early period of the disease or, better, to prevention in individuals at risk for the development of the disease (atypical pneumonias, pulmonary contusion, major surgery patients).
Treatment of the underlying cause is imperative, as it tends to maintain the ARDS picture.
Appropriate antibiotic therapy must be administered as soon as microbiological culture results are available. Empirical therapy may be appropriate if local microbiological surveillance is efficient. More than 60% ARDS patients experience a (nosocomial) pulmonary infection either before or after the onset of lung injury.
The origin of infection, when surgically treatable, must be operated on. When sepsis is diagnosed, appropriate local protocols should be enacted.
Commonly used supportive therapy includes particular techniques of mechanical ventilation and pharmacological agents whose effectiveness with respect to the outcome has not yet been proven. It is now debated whether mechanical ventilation is to be considered mere supportive therapy or actual treatment, since it may substantially affect survival.
Survivors of ARDS have an increased risk of lower quality of life, persistent cognitive impairment, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Read more about this topic: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
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