Researcher to study lung disease

Paul Lanken, director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at the Medical Center, has been selected to participate in a $10 million nationwide study focusing on the treatment and prevention of Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Although many people have never heard of ARDS, it kills more than 100,000 Americans annually and is estimated to affect more than five million people worldwide each year. The disorder is usually a secondary effect of some other physiological disturbance, such as major trauma. ARDS attacks the air spaces in the lungs and leads to impaired breathing function and eventual collapse of the lungs. The disorder has a mortality rate of more than 50 percent. "We see about 100 cases a year at HUP," Lanken said last week. "It affects a lot of people." Documentation of the disorder is scarce and contradictory. "It's not a reportable disease," Larken said. "It wasn't until last year that the ARDS Consensus Conference agreed upon a definition. It was only discovered in 1967. There really hasn't been much progress in 25 years." The seven-year grant by the Lung Division of the National Institute of Health's Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will fund a collaborative effort among 10 selected critical care treatment groups, including the Medical Center. The Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Graduate Hospital will participate as additional sites for the recruitment of patients into the study. This is the first time that the NIH has funded ARDS research since 1976, Lanken said. "Physicians, especially those in intensive care, are very aware of [ARDS]," he said. "The public is very unaware."