Lost in translation? The pursuit of lung-protective ventilation

Acute lung injury (ALI) and the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remain important causes of morbidity and mortality in the critically ill patient, with far-reaching short-term and long-term implications for individual patients and for healthcare providers. It is well accepted that mechanical ventilation can worsen lung injury, potentially worsening systemic organ function, and can thus impact on mortality in acute lung injury (ALI)/ARDS. Unfortunately, although the concept of minimizing such damage via lung-protective ventilatory strategies is widely acknowledged, effective integration of such an approach into clinical practice remains more elusive. The study by the Irish Critical Care Trials Group published in the previous edition of Critical Care describes a 10-week real-life survey of all intensive care unit admissions across Ireland, detailing for the first time the epidemiology of ALI/ARDS in this population and clinician's attempts to deliver lung-protective ventilation. The authors also report hypothesis-generating data on the implications of statin use in this population. The present commentary reviews aspects of this work, with particular attention to the implementation of low-tidal-volume/lung-protective ventilatory strategies in ALI/ARDS.