Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome - History

History

Acute respiratory distress syndrome was first described in 1967 by Ashbaugh et al. Initially there was no definition, resulting in controversy over incidence and mortality. In 1988 an expanded definition was proposed which quantified physiologic respiratory impairment.

In 1994 a new definition was recommended by the American-European Consensus Conference Committee. It had two advantages: first, it recognizes that severity of pulmonary injury varies, and secondly, it is simple to use.

ARDS was defined as the ratio of arterial partial oxygen tension (PaO2) as fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) below 200 mmHg in the presence of bilateralinfiltrates on the chest x-ray. These infiltrates may appear similar to those of left ventricular failure, but the cardiac silhouette appears normal in ARDS. Also, the pulmonary capillary wedge pressure is normal (less than 18 mmHg) in ARDS, but raised in left ventricular failure.

A PaO2/FiO2 ratio less than 300 mmHg with bilateral infiltrates indicatesacute lung injury (ALI). Although formally considered different from ARDS, ALI is usually just a precursor to ARDS.

In 2012 the Berlin Definition of ARDS was published this did away with the ALI/ARDS differentiation. It opts instead to classify ARDS as Mild, Moderate or severe.

Read more about this topic:  Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)