Esophageal pressure monitoring in ARDS

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains a disease with high mortality rates despite recent therapeutic advances [1]. Although mechanical ventilation can be lifesaving, inappropriate use of the ventilator can itself promote lung injury. It could be useful to know the mechanics characteristics of the respiratory system in order to be able to set a protective ventilation strategy, because ARDS is a syndrome with marked clinical variability. The assessment of respiratory mechanics is important in mechanically ventilated patients because acute respiratory failure is most often the consequence of severe abnormalities in the mechanical properties of the respiratory system, including its lung and chest wall components [2]. Despite possible technical artifacts, recording of the esophageal pressure (Pes) provides the opportunity of estimating pleural pressure (PPl), to partition the mechanics and better understand the underlying pulmonary injury.