Inhaled Nitric Oxide in Acute Respiratory Failure

Abstract

Gaseous nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are well known atmospheric outdoor pollutants. The toxicities of these pollutants were extensively studied in the seventies. In the eighties, inhaled NO was used in humans as an alternative to CO to measure the oxygen diffusing capacity of the lungs (Meyer and Piiper; 1989; Moinard and Guenard, 1990). In 1987, one of the endothelium-derived relaxing factors was identified as NO (Furchgott and Zawadski, 1980; Palmer et al., 1987). It was then demonstrated that NO was continuously released by the endothelial cells after activation of the constitutive NO synthase in response to shear stress. Later, NO was found to be involved in a large number of physiological systems (Berdeaux, 1993; Moncada et al., 1991) such as coagulation (Macdonald et al., 1988; Alheid et al, 1987), neuronal transmission and inflammation.KeywordsNitric OxideNitric OxidePulmonary Arterial HypertensionAcute Lung InjuryAcute Respiratory FailureThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.