Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a variety of acute respiratory failure syndrome. Symptoms include: respiratory distress, rapid heartbeat, rapid and shallow breath, low blood oxygen. Some patients have multiple organ failure. The primary disease causing ARDS should be actively treated. The most urgent thing is to correct the low blood oxygen. The mortality rate of ARDS is about 50% and the mortality depends on the severity. Patients often die of the underlying disease, multiple organ failure and refractory hypoxemia (hard-to-treat low oxygen blood). If patients can recover, some can fully recover, while some patients will have pulmonary fibrosis. However, pulmonary fibrosis usually does not affect the quality of life.
How is Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) treated in practice?