Progresses in Pathogenesis of Traumatic Acute Lung Injury

Acute lung injury (ALI) is an acute and progressive respiratory failure state which can be induced by pneumonia, aspiration, sepsis, pancreatitis and trauma. ALI following trauma is different in many respects from ALI related to other causes. Patients with ALI after injury tend to be younger and have fewer comorbid medical conditions and lower mortality. Lung contusion is the early phase of traumatic ALI.ALI sometimes progress to acute respiratory syndrome (ARDS) for a delayed management and the mortality may as high as 30-60% because what we can offer is only expectant treatment to these patients. But there are no sufficient studies about ALI following trauma compare with ALI related to other causes. We made this review about biomarkers of traumatic ALI after searching recent related literatures systematically, in order to provide a clue for early?diagnosis and further research of ALI.