[Sepsis and ARDS].

Basic therapeutic methods based on early diagnosis of septic ARDS were described. Concerning early diagnosis exertional hypoxemia and increased broncho-vascular markings on chest X-ray were observed in the pre-ARDS stage of septic patients. These findings were also observed in the initial stage of endotoxin-induced pulmonary edema in rabbits and the basic mechanisms were thought to be as follows, based or our experimental studies. The former is related on impairment of alveolar diffusion and the latter reflect increased peri-vascular cuffing due to increase in pulmonary edema. The diffuse infiltrative shadows on the both back area in CT scanning was also a helpful sign indicating the early stage of pulmonary edema. This finding was seen at the stage at which the edematous shadow had not yet appeared on conventional chest X-ray. Increase in serum laminin and decrease in plasma fibronectin were also important biochemical findings predicting ARDS in gram negative sepsis. Using these findings, it is considered that early prediction of septic ARDS is possible. Concerning therapeutic methods based on early prediction, the usefulness of cortico-steroids and the protease inhibitor "Urinastatin" were observed in experimental in vitro and in vivo studies. Some findings induced by endotoxin administration in rats or rabbits, such as the increase in endotoxin in peripheral blood, the distraction of PMN-elastase, the increase in pulmonary lymph flow and mortality within 48 hours were significantly suppressed by simultaneous treatment by corticosteroid. In an in vitro study, PMN superoxide production and elastase release following incubation of endotoxin and PMNs were significantly inhibited by adding a concomitant level of corticosteroid and/or urinastatin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)