Adult respiratory distress syndrome in children

Adult respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS as coined by Ashbaugh et al in 1967, has been a great challenge in the field of critical care since then. It is a clinical entity which can be caused by various insults at any age. There have been several case reports of ARDS involving infants and children in the past 10 years, but pediatric ARDS is still not well recognized in Taiwan. A review of admissions to the pediatric intensive care unit in the past 2 years shows that 11 of the cases were included as pediatric ARDS combined with the expanded definition of Murray et al, and that each patient had an acute lung injury score greater than 2.5. Clinical manifestations also presented acute pulmonary distress indicating ARDS. The distribution of age ranged from 13 months to 11 years. The predisposing insults included sepsis, gastrointestinal bleeding with shock and massive blood transfusion, central nervous system infection, major trauma, near drowning, fulminant hepatitis and chemotherapy for acute leukemia. All received mechanical ventilatory support. The average peak inspiratory pressure was 46.7 +/- 6.4 cmH2O and the mean value of maximal PEEP used was 11.9 +/- 4.4 cmH2 O. Three patients developed barotrauma. Two patients survived and nine expired, a mortality rate of 82%. It is important for physicians caring for infants and children with respiratory failure to consider the diagnosis and initiate adequate ventilatory support and other resuscitation management.