Acute Lung Injury — Affecting Many Lives

Acute lung injury is the clinical syndrome of rapid-onset bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and hypoxemia of noncardiac origin. When the hypoxemia is severe, the condition is termed the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).1 As archetypal examples of critical illness requiring intensive care, advanced life support, and considerable health care resources, acute lung injury and ARDS have attracted substantial research interest. An extensive body of laboratory and clinical investigation has been amassed since the original description almost 40 years ago, cataloguing our advancing knowledge of the cause, pathophysiology, and management of these complex and often lethal syndromes. However, estimates of their incidence . . .