Journal of applied physiology
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Despite advances in critical care, the mortality rate in patients with acute lung injury remains high. Furthermore, most patients who die do so from multisystem organ failure. It has been postulated that ventilator-induced lung injury plays a key role in determining the negative clinical outcome of patients exposed to mechanical ventilation. ⋯ This information must then be integrated in the nucleus, and an appropriate response must be generated to implement and/or modulate its response and that of neighboring cells. In this review, we present a perspective on ventilator-induced lung injury with a focus on mechanisms and clinical implications. We highlight some of the most recent findings, which we believe contribute to the generation and propagation of ventilator-induced lung injury, placing a special emphasis on their implication for future research and clinical therapies.