Assessment of lung injury in the adult respiratory distress syndrome using multiple indicator dilution curves.

To assess its usefulness as an index of lung injury in critically ill patients with respiratory failure, the lung microvascular permeability surface area product for urea (14C-PSu) was measured using a multiple radioisotopic indicator dilution technique in 10 patients with the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and in a control population of 5 patients without ARDS. The mean values for 14C-PSu and for extravascular lung water (EVLW) were both significantly elevated in patients with ARDS compared with those in control patients (14C-PSu: 18.7 +/- 4.4 versus 7.6 +/- 0.7, p less than 0.05; EVLW: 676 +/- 55 versus 269 +/- 53, p less than 0.001); 14C-PSu and EVLW were significantly correlated (R = 0.52, p less than 0.001). In the patients with ARDS, 14C-PSu and oxygenation, assessed as the alveolar-arterial oxygen difference, did not appear to be correlated. Repeated measurements of 14C-PSu were variable in the 3 control patients in whom 4 or more measurements were obtained (SD = 50, 57, and 54% of the mean values, respectively); 14C-PSu did not predict clinical outcome assessed by survival of individual patients with ARDS. These data suggest that measurement of 14C-PSu in critically ill patients is a clinically applicable parameter that reflects the degree of microvascular injury in groups of patients. However, our study did not indicate a clear advantage of 14C-PSu over EVLW in assessing lung injury in this patient population. The variability in 14C-PSu control patients also suggests that directional changes in 14C-PSu, as a measure of changes in the degree of lung microvascular dysfunction, should be interpreted with caution.