Glucocorticoid Therapy for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
Status:
Not yet recruiting
Trial end date:
2024-04-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a clinical syndrome of inflammatory lung injury
characterized by increased pulmonary vascular permeability, loss of aerated lung tissue,
severe hypoxemia and impaired compliance. Despite the advance in the critical care
technology, the mortality of ARDS remains high in the last decades. Glucocorticoids have
profound anti-inflammatory actions through the pleiotropic effects of the glucocorticoid
receptor, which are considering a promising pharmacological therapy to mitigate the
inflammatory lung injury and subsequent fibrosis in ARDS. Previous clinical trials have
repeatedly tested the efficacy of glucocorticoid therapy in ARDS; however, the data about
hard outcomes, such as mortality, are inconsistent between these studies. Investigators
designed a 3x2 factorial trial of glucocorticoid therapy in ARDS to test the effects of
glucocorticoid dosages (dose 0, dose 0.5 mg/kg, and dose 1 mg/kg of methylprednisolone
equivalence) and durations (prolonged and short duration) on the treatment efficacy. In
addition, investigators will measure the change of inflammatory biomarkers for post-hoc
analysis to explore whether biomarkers could be used to guide patient selection and steroid
tapering.