Description

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) is a life threatening form of respiratory failure, characterized by acute, diffuse, inflammatory lung injury that results in increased alveolar capillary permeability and the development of non-hydrostatic pulmonary edema.

Clinically, ARDS manifests as marked hypoxemia and respiratory distress; patients often progress to respiratory failure that requires invasive mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit.

No specific pharmacological treatment is available for ARDS, which is associated with high morbidity and mortality. The mainstay of therapy in ARDS is supportive therapy and invasive mechanical ventilation based on lung-protective strategies using low tidal volume (VT) at 4-6 ml/kg of predicted body weight (PBW) and plateau pressure (p PLAT) below 30 cm H2O, but other adjunctive therapies have been trialed with various degrees of efficacy, including neuromuscular blockade, prone positioning, recruitment maneuvers (RMs), vasodilators, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

Hypertonic saline 3% NaCl with 513 mEq/L of Na and 513 mEq/L of Cl is a potent anti-inflammatory agent, and immunomodulator, which exerts inhibitory effects in several stages of the inflammatory cascade. Hypertonic saline, at a cellular level, decreases alveolar macrophage activation, polymorph nuclear leucocyte recruitment, priming and activation, as well as cell surface adhesion molecule expression. High plasma sodium contributes to high plasma osmolality which can be lung protective and would seem to be a logical choice for treatment of ARDS.