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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 can be 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 301-1). The clinical features of ARDS are listed in Table 301-2. By expert consensus, ARDS is defined by three categories based on the degrees of hypoxemia (Table 301-2). These stages of mild, moderate, and severe ARDS are associated with mortality risk and with the duration of mechanical ventilation in survivors.
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The annual incidence of ARDS prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was estimated to be as high as 60 cases/100,000 population. Approximately 10% of all intensive care unit (ICU) admissions involve patients with ARDS. This chapter will focus on non-COVID-19-ARDS. Please see Chap. 199 for more information on COVID.
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While many medical and surgical illnesses have been associated with the development of ARDS, most cases (>80%) are caused by a relatively small number of clinical disorders: pneumonia and sepsis (~40–60%), followed in incidence by aspiration of gastric contents, trauma, multiple transfusions, and drug overdose. Among patients with trauma, the most frequently reported surgical conditions in ARDS are pulmonary contusion, multiple bone fractures, and chest wall trauma/flail chest, whereas head trauma, near-drowning, toxic inhalation, and burns are ...