Emerging drugs for acute lung injury

Abstract

Introduction: Acute respiratory distress syndromes (ARDS) are devastating disorders of overwhelming pulmonary inflammation and hypoxemia, resulting in high morbidity and mortality.

Areas covered: The main pharmacological treatment strategies have focused on the attempted inhibition of excessive inflammation or the manipulation of the resulting physiological derangement causing respiratory failure. Additionally, such interventions may allow reduced occurence mechanical ventilation injury. Despite promising preclinical and small clinical studies, almost all therapies have been shown to be unsuccessful in large-scale randomized controlled trials. The evidence for pharmacological treatment for ARDS is reviewed. Potential future treatments are also presented.

Expert opinion: We suggest for future clinical trials addressing prevention and early intervention to attenuate lung injury and progression to respiratory failure.

Keywords:

• acute respiratory distress syndrome
• inflammation
• pharmacotherapy

Acknowledgement

D Impellizzeri and G Bruschetta contributed equally to this work.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

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