What's Next After ARDS: Long-Term Outcomes

ARDS is a life-threatening organ failure due to several pulmonary and extrapulmonary injuries with an incidence between 5 and 60 cases/100,000 persons/y. Patients with ARDS have non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema and dyspnea often requiring invasive mechanical ventilation and intensive care admission. Although the short-term mortality rate has significantly decreased in the last decade, mainly due to the widespread application of lung-protective ventilation and better general support, long-term outcomes are still unsatisfactory. Besides simply evaluating the outcome at hospital discharge, several recent studies have assessed the health-related quality of life, neuropsychological disability, radiological findings, and pulmonary dysfunction up to 5 y. This paper reviews the literature regarding the long-term outcomes in patients with ARDS.