Studies on the efficacy of automatic micro bubble test on the evaluation of respiratory failure in ARDS

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The number of microbubbles (MB) in the aspirated specimen from the airway was measured to speculate the native surfactant activity in the patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). If the MB numbers were small, we could differentiate whether they had an insufficient amount of surfactant or they had an inhibitory activity to surfactant, by adding the specimen to the artificial surfactant (Surfactant-TA, 0.1 mg/ml) as a positive control. It was noticeable that there was a patient whose MB number decreased with his clinical course and also that his inhibitory activity was increased to 85.9 % in the last sample 4 days before his death. These results may provide a judgmental hint whether the physician administrates the artificial surfactant to the patients with ARDS or not.