Published in:
01-05-2016 | Editorial
Steroids are part of rescue therapy in ARDS patients with refractory hypoxemia: we are not sure
Authors:
Nitin Seam, Anthony F. Suffredini
Published in:
Intensive Care Medicine
|
Issue 5/2016
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Excerpt
Many clinicians have ambivalence regarding the use of steroids in critical illness. In a survey of corticosteroid use in the ICU, more than half would use steroids in vasopressor-refractory septic shock while the majority of respondents almost never use corticosteroids for ARDS [
1]. Considering the nature of the injury, the high mortality and the underlying pathogenesis of ARDS, this is somewhat surprising. Patients with ARDS with higher levels of lung and systemic inflammation have worse clinical outcome [
2,
3]. Because of its inflammatory basis, corticosteroids have long been considered a potential therapy for ARDS. …