Tetracycline to Limit the Innate Immune Response in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe form of respiratory failure with a mortality rate of approximately 40%. Despite advances in its supportive treatment such as lung protective ventilation or restrictive fluid management, no effective pharmacotherapy exists to treat ARDS. Emerging preclinical data indicates that excessive activation of the inflammasome-Caspase 1 pathway plays a key role in the development of ARDS. Tetracycline has anti-inflammatory properties via inhibiting inflammasome-caspase-1 activation. Since not much is known about the activation of the inflammasome in clinical ARDS, the purpose of this study is i) to investigate the the inflammasome-caspase-1 activation in clinical ARDS and ii) inhibit the innate immune response of alveolar leucocytes obtained by tetracycline from patients with ARDS