TY - JOUR T1 - Acute Respiratory Distress: From syndrome to disease JO - Medicina Intensiva (English Edition) T2 - AU - Cardinal-Fernández,P. AU - Correger,E. AU - Villanueva,J. AU - Rios,F. SN - 21735727 M3 - 10.1016/j.medine.2015.11.002 DO - 10.1016/j.medine.2015.11.002 UR - https://www.medintensiva.org/en-acute-respiratory-distress-from-syndrome-articulo-S2173572716000187 AB - Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is currently one of the most important critical conditions, due to its high incidence, mortality rate, long-term sequelae and nonspecific pharmacological treatment.The histological hallmark of ARDS is diffuse alveolar damage (DAD). Approximately 50% of all ARDS patients present DAD, while the rest exhibit a heterogeneous group of histological patterns, many of which correspond to well-recognized disease. Consequently, if these patterns could be diagnosed, patients could benefit from specific treatment.The effect of DAD upon the clinical and analytical evolution of ARDS has recently been demonstrated; the classical approach to ARDS as an entity defined solely by clinical, radiological and gasometrical variables therefore should be reconsidered.This review aims to examine the need to evolve from the concept of ARDS as a syndrome to ARDS as a specific disease. Accordingly, we have addressed four critical questions: (a) what is a disease?; (b) what is DAD?; (c) how do the different definitions of ARDS regard DAD?; and (d) what is the relationship between ARDS and DAD? ER -