Articles That May Change Your Practice: Prone Position Ventilation

Abstract

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in critically ill patients is a burden to health care worldwide because it carries a mortality rate of about 40%. In ARDS, diffuse and progressive inflammatory changes in the lung alveoli eventually lead to alveolar injury. This results in impaired gas exchange, leading to hypoxemia. Russell D. MacDonald, MD, MPH, FCFP, FRCPC, is the medical director at Ornge Transport Medicine; medical director at Toronto Paramedic Services; an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto; and an attending staff member at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] Yuen Chin Leong, MD, MEmMed, is an emergency physician in Malaysia. He is currently pursuing the Emergency Medical Services Fellowship at Sunnybrook Center for Prehospital Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada.