Acute respiratory distress syndrome—a worldwide economic perspective

The Lung Safe study (Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE) was an observational international study performed in 459 intensive care units (ICUs) worldwide during the winter 2014 in patients with hypoxemic acute respiratory failure (1). Among the large number of patients screened, 2,813 were meeting ARDS criteria according to the Berlin definition and analyzed (2). This is the largest study ever done in the field and actually size does matter. This secondary analysis explored the effects of geo-economic variations and their impact on practice and outcome in ARDS patients (3). The authors used the 2016 World Bank countries classification to define three major geo-economic grouping countries, namely European high-income (Europe-high), high-income in the rest of the world (rWORLD-High) and middle-income (Middle). Outcomes were compared across these three groups. We will first present the major results of this study, then discuss their significance and how these may impact clinicians for care delivery in patients with ARDS