Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a pulmonary disease process that affects post-surgical patients in the intensive care unit and leads to significant patient morbidity and mortality and hospital cost. Extensive research has been conducted in the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS. To date, however, very little research examining the effect of the operative course on the development of ARDS has been reported. By examining the intraoperative anesthetic characteristics of patients who developed ARDS postoperatively, we hope to identify variables which have a positive or negative association on the development of ARDS. Once identified, the variables can be confirmed by future studies and encourage change in clinical care to decrease the occurrence of ARDS in surgical patients.
