Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome : A Lung Inflammation

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Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome : A Lung Inflammation

The Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome or ARDS is a major lung injury characterized by modifications in both lungs and comprises dispersion of epithelial cell injury with increased permeability of the alveolar-capillary membrane (Porth 715 . It is often mistaken as an infection due to the accretion of edema fluids but it is actually a lung inflammatory injury . Twelve persons were reported in

the first clinical account of this disease and seven or 60 percent of them died during that time . Records now show that 150 ,000 to 200 , 000 people are affected by ARDS every year and 50 -60 of them die (Porth 715 . Currently , it is the leading cause of acute respiratory failure in the United States (Marino 419

ARDS , through the years , gained different calls or names , all trying to identify the roots and results of the disease . It had been named shock lung , non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema , and adult respiratory distress syndrome (Marino 419 . However , since the reports of children having the same symptoms and effects of the disease , the name was again changed permanently , to acute respiratory distress syndrome

Varied factors may cause the origin of ARDS in a patient . The disease may result from aspiration of gastric contents , major trauma (with or without emboil , sepsis secondary to pulmonary or non-pulmonary infections , acute pancreatitis , hematologic diss , metabolic events and reactions to drugs and toxins (Porth 715

Through the progress of ARDS , breathing gradually becomes a struggle for the patient for the reason that the lungs begins to become stiff and thus limits inflation . Different organs began to be affected as well resulting to some predisposed clinical conditions . Eventually , ARDS is accompanied by one or more , or sometimes all , of the following intracranial hypertension , blood products catheter sepsis drugs pneumonia pulmonary contusion , cardio pulmonary bypass , pancreatitis translocation endotoxemia , urosepsis amniotic fluid embolism , long bone fracture (Marino 421 . It was also observed that there comes an increased pulmonary shunting of blood , impaired gas exchange , and profound hypoxia in the development of the disease (Marino 715 . In due course , if the injury is not treated , dised epithelial repair may effect into fibrosis . The pathology or pathogenesis of ARDS came to be as vague and unclear to most people at first . However , Paul Marino said that the process undergone by the disease is actually a diffused inflammation

The lung consolidation in ARDS is believed to originate from a systematic activation of circulating neutrophils . The activated neutrophils become sticky and adhere to the vascular endothelium in the pulmonary capillaries . The neutrophils then release the contents of their cytoplasmic granules , and this damages the endothelium and leads to a leaky-capillary type of exudation into the lung parenchyma Neutrophils and proteinaceous material gain access to the lung parenchyma and fill the alveolar air spaces (420-421

Cure for ARDS had been difficult to find due to multiple organ failure that joins it...