The jury is still out on whether patients with acute lung injury and adult respiratory distress syndrome derive any benefit from the use of corticosteroids, according to Dr. Stephen M. Pastores.

“This is probably the most controversial topic in acute lung injury and ARDS,” Dr. Pastores of the department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

From Familypracticenews.com:

He went on to note that physicians should give steroids in conjunction with infection surveillance, “avoiding neuromuscular blockers if you can, and being concerned about the phenomenon of rebound inflammation if you stop steroids abruptly.”

Inhaled nitric oxide has also been studied as a nonventilatory strategy in ALI/ARDS. A Cochrane review of 13 randomized, controlled trials involving 1,303 patients found no significant effect with this approach in overall mortality, but did show a transient improvement in oxygenation in the first 24 hours. The review also found that inhaled nitric oxide had no significant effect on duration of ventilation, ventilator-free days, and ICU and hospital length of stay. An increased risk of renal impairment among adults was also noted (Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2010 Oct. 23 [doi:10.1002/14651858.CD002787.pub2]).

“An important piece of this study was that [the researchers] did regular infection surveillance with regular bronchoscopies, and they avoided the use of neuromuscular blockers,” said Dr. Pastores, who is also professor of medicine and anesthesiology at Cornell University in New York.

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