Clinical Trial: Efficacy Study of Dexamethasone to Treat the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Interventional




Official Title: A Comparative, Randomised Controlled Trial for Evaluating the Efficacy of Dexamethasone in the Treatment of Patients With Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Brief Summary:

BACKGROUND: Currently, there is no proven pharmacologic treatment for patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Great interest remains in the use of corticosteroids for the salvage of patients with severe acute lung injury in the early phase of their disease process, a situation that that has not been evaluated in most published trials. Dexamethasone has never been evaluated in ARDS in a randomized controlled fashion.

HYPOTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES: The investigators hypothesize that adjunctive treatment with intravenous dexamethasone of patients with established ARDS might change the pulmonary and systemic inflammatory response and thereby will increase the number of ventilator-free days and will decrease the extremely high overall mortality. Our goal is to examine the effects of dexamethasone on length of duration of mechanical ventilation (assessed by number of ventilator-free days) and on mortality, in patients admitted into a network of Spanish intensive care units (ICUs) who still meet ARDS criteria at 24 hours after ARDS onset.