Figure 1.

Increased permeability pulmonary edema is a hallmark of ALI/ARDS. Edema fluid to plasma protein concentrations expressed as a ratio to determine whether the edema fluid is a transudate as in hydrostatic pulmonary edema (< 0.65) or an exudate (> 0.65) as in increased permeability pulmonary edema (ALI/ARDS). The pulmonary edema fluid samples were obtained from patients within the 15 min of endotracheal intubation for acute respiratory failure. These are representative data from previously published and ongoing studies by Matthay and coworkers, some of which are discussed in Ref. 18.