Definition of spectrum of acute lung injury

摘要

Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are part of a spectrum of the same syndrome that reflect the clinical expression of the alveolar-capillary membrane permeability alterations leading to a protein--rich pulmonary edema and consequent acute respiratory failure after a genetically predisposed human organism is exposed to a trigger [1-3]. The pathogenic pathway or underlying disease responsible for the inflammatory injury in ARDS may occur either directly in lung cells, as with aspiration pneumonia, pulmonary infection (bacterial pneumonia, viral pneumonia, and protozoa pneumonia), inhalation injury, pulmonary contusion, near drowning, or indirectly via the bloodstream, as with sepsis, severe trauma with prolonged hypotension and or multiple fractures, multiple transfusions of blood products, acute pancreatitis, fat emboli, cardiopulmonary bypass, endovenous drug overdose, disseminated intravascular coagulation, reperfusion injury burns and head injury [3-5].