Table 1.
Clinical characteristics of 25 patients with acute lung injury or acute respiratory distress syndrome
| Clinical characteristic | No. of patients (percentage of total)a |
| Age | 62 ± 21 yearsb |
| Males | 13 (52) |
| APACHE II score | 27 ± 9b |
| Primary etiology of ALI/ARDS | |
| Pneumonia | 16 (64) |
| Sepsis | 4 (16) |
| Aspiration | 4 (16) |
| Other | 1 (4) |
| Underlying medical illness | |
| Chronic liver disease | 6 (24) |
| Chronic renal insufficiency | 6 (24) |
| Metastatic cancer | 0 (0) |
| Hematologic malignancy | 3 (12) |
| AIDS | 1 (4) |
| Diabetes mellitus | 1 (4) |
aExcept where marked with superscript b; bdata shown as means ± standard deviation. ALI, acute lung injury; APACHE II, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation; ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome.