Respiratory distress resulting from acute lung injury in the veterinary patient

Because of improved management of animals in intensive care facilities, veterinarians are often confronted with patients at risk of developing adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The four objectives of this review are: 1) to describe the clinical conditions which place animals at risk for development of ARDS, 2) to give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the pathophysiology of endotoxin-induced lung injury, 3) to address the interspecies variability in susceptibility to endotoxin-induced lung injury, and 4) to outline areas where veterinarians should be concentrating their diagnostic and therapeutic efforts with regards to this syndrome. Because there is little written in the veterinary literature on ARDS, this review will rely heavily on the human ARDS literature as well as on research in animal models of acute lung injury.