ART STudy Investigators.

Trial name or title	Alveolar Recruitment for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Trial
Methods	Prospective, multi‐centre, event‐guided RCT
Participants	Participants considered for this trial are those in mechanical ventilation with diagnosis of ARDS < 72 hours Partcipants will be excluded if they are younger than 18 years old, in use of vasopressor drugs in increasing doses over the past 2 hours or mean arterial blood pressure < 65 mmHg, presence of any contraindication to hypercapnia, undrained pneumothorax or subcutaneous emphysema and lack of consent from participant's surrogate for participation
Interventions	Intervention: maximum alveolar recruitment manoeuvre in association with PEEP titrated by static compliance of respiratory system Control: conventional mechanical ventilation strategy
Outcomes	Primary: survival in 28 days Secondary Hospital stay Pneumothorax requiring drainage Barotrauma Days free of mechanical ventilation Survival in 6 months
Starting date	June 2011
Contact information
Notes	ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01374022