The consensus definitions of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) mainly rely on feasible clinical criteria, which help to group patients together for inclusion in clinical trials and for clinical management. This generates clinical and biological differences in observable patient characteristics. These differences could be used to group ARDS patients, referred to as ARDS subphenotypes, according to an article in Intensive Care Medicine. Identifying ARDS subphenotypes who either have a higher risk of mortality (prognostic enrichment), or differences in treatment responses and/or similar biological mechanisms that are modifiable (predictive enrichment) could enable stratified and/or precision medicine. To date, two ARDS subphenotypes have been reported from five randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and one observational cohort study.

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