San Antonio—Nearly half of patients who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) within 48 hours. Those patients who develop ARDS after an OHCA spend more days in the ICU and on a ventilator, die more often, and are less likely to recover with good functional status.
“Cardiac arrest is not traditionally thought to be one of the main risk factors for ARDS,” said lead author Nicholas Johnson, MD, an attending physician in