ABSTRACT
Acute lung injury (ALI) remains a serious threat to critically ill patients and continues
to pose challenges to clinicians and investigators as they strive to better identify
and treat these patients. Over 30 years of clinical and basic science investigations
have led to a better understanding of the pathophysiology, risk factors, and prognosis
of this entity but we still lack a ``gold standard'' for its identification. The American-European
Consensus Conference definition has helped in the effort to standardize the definition
of ALI but is still fraught with difficulties in the application of criteria for the
chest radiograph, hypoxemia, and left atrial hypertension. As further efforts are
undertaken to better define ALI and to more accurately describe its incidence, it
is critical that methodology to assess the accuracy and reliability of such definitions
be utilized. This union of clinical epidemiology, clinical research, and basic science
will not only better describe the population burden of ALI but will also better track
the effect of current and future therapeutic interventions.
KEYWORD
ARDS - epidemiology - incidence - prevalence - diagnosis - definition
