Lung Imaging in Acute Lung Injury and Acute Respiratory DistressSyndrome with PET

PET imaging is an attractive technique to study patients with acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) because of its non-invasiveness, its potential to obtain quantitative measurements on a regional basis, and its ability to give functional (not simply morphologic) information about the lungs. The purpose of this manuscript is to focus on the application of PET imaging in ALI/ARDS, to review PET measurements of potential interest in this context and to address their limitations, and finally to summarize the contribution of previous studies in ALI/ARDS patients in the understanding of the physiopathology of this syndrome.