[Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in cerebral malaria (author's transl)].

Non hemodynamic pulmonary edemas included by some authors in the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) had been reported in cerebral malaria. We describe a new case. Clinical data, hemodynamic studies with PWP measurement, and anatomic findings are coherent with the diagnosis of ARDS. Although the underlying causal mechanisms--the marked parasitemia and its consequence on permeability of the pulmonary capillary--remain speculative, they seem credible. The pulmonary lesions are provoked by these main factors and worsened by hypoprotidemia and surinfection. Prevention of all these factors can stop the evolution towards refractory hypoxemia but the precocity of quinine treatment remains the most important point.