Difference in the recovery of pulmonary function between pulmonary and extrapulmonary acute respiratory distress syndrome

We investigated long-term outcomes in patients with pulmonary and extrapulmonary ARDS including all items of PFT, gas exchange, quality of life, and HRCT, which had not been dealt comprehensively in previous studies. We found that, although most abnormalities on PFT were mild, 62.9% and 51.8% of the patients showed abnormality in PFT and exercise PFT, respectively after more than six months of ARDS onset. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that only significant factor to affect the extent of lesions on HRCT and TLC was the subtype of ARDS. These results suggest that patients with ARDSp would remain more severe lung sequelae after recovery than the ARDSexp patients.