The New England journal of medicine
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Multicenter Study
Pulmonary dead-space fraction as a risk factor for death in the acute respiratory distress syndrome.
No single pulmonary-specific variable, including the severity of hypoxemia, has been found to predict the risk of death independently when measured early in the course of the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Because an increase in the pulmonary dead-space fraction has been described in observational studies of the syndrome, we systematically measured the dead-space fraction early in the course of the illness and evaluated its potential association with the risk of death. ⋯ Increased dead-space fraction is a feature of the early phase of the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Elevated values are associated with an increased risk of death.