Assessment of oxygenation response to prone position ventilation in ARDS by lung ultrasonography

Excerpt

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is of major concern for the intensivist, as ARDS can only be treated in the intensive care unit (ICU). A cornerstone treatment is mechanical ventilation in order to buy time while the disease leading to ARDS can be cured. Therefore, the first aim of mechanical ventilation is to maintain a viable gas exchange. Over the years we realized that the cost of mechanical ventilation, as measured by the occurrence of ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI) [1], was too high if the target of the mechanical ventilation was normal blood gases. From there, permissive hypercapnia and oxygen saturation between 85 and 90 % were accepted to decrease the risk of VILI. …