Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) from Endemic Influenza A/H1N1: Prehospital

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a form of acute life threatening respiratory failure. In daily practice there is difficulty in diagnostic and therapeutic management of Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We observed delay in diagnostic and thera-peutic procedures in patients with clinical signs for the presence of severe respiratory disorders. Finding timely evidence of the presence the clinical signs of threatening ARDS and underlying diseases like influenza A/H1N1 during prehospital period in early stage of disease it is possible introduce early adequate treatment: high flow oxygen, fluid replacement and pharmacological and antiviral therapy. This measure can reduce high mortality in patients who develop ARDS. It is important to improve diagnostic criteria for a precise definition of ARDS and transfer it in practice of emergency and family medicine, microbiology, intensive care units, hospital departments of infec-tious and respiratory diseases. In this article we underlined the key elements of the new definition of ARDS, diagnostic criteria and the importance of early diagnosis in prehospital period following clinical feature and course (a presence of severe dyspnea) by adding chest x-ray and laboratory investigations. Key words: ARDS, diagnostic criteria, Influenza A/H1N1/, prehospital management, antiviral therapy. 1