How Best to Ventilate? Trial Design and Patient Safety in Studies of the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Abstract

Each year, about 150,000 people in the United States have acute lung injury or its most severe form, the acute respiratory distress syndrome — devastating lung diseases associated with a mortality rate of between 30 and 50 percent. Despite the severe lung injury, pulmonary function in most survivors returns nearly to normal within 6 to 12 months. Unfortunately, the search for effective treatments to keep patients alive while their lungs heal has lagged behind the substantial progress in basic research. Almost all the treatments that have been tested in clinical trials have not worked.^1,2 After years of bad news, . . .