Ventilation in acute respiratory distress syndrome: importance of low-tidal volume

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a lifethreatening syndrome that affects more than 150,000 patients annually in the United States with nearly 40–60% mortality (1-3). Over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the fields of critical care, mechanical ventilation, fluid management and sedation practices that have impacted the practice of intensive care medicine, including the management of ARDS (3-5).