SARA

Abstract

Although Ards is still a systemic disease, it is clinically characterized by the sudden symptoms of progressive shortness of air, refractory arterial hypoxia, reduced pulmonary complacency, and bilateral diffuse alveolar infiltrate to thorax x-ray, without any evidence of congestive cardiac insufficiency. The detection of the disease in its initial cellular alterations is usually difficult, restricting the diagnosis to more advanced stages when the patient has gone into plain respiratory insufficiency, with little chance of recuperation. The approach directed at an early diagnosis of the syndrome, as well as to the understanding of its triggering factors, substantially modifies the evolutional course of the disease. New therapeutic possibilities, with drugs which actuate in the blocking of the pathogenic process, seem to be a new hope for the effective control of this serious illness. Presently we do not know when, and in which patient to intervene. We are still in need of finding some indicator to guide our procedures. These problems help to explain the reason why, in spite of all the advances made in the understanding of the pathogeny and physiopathology of the disease, patients continue to die with the same frequency as that found by Ashbaugh in 1967.