Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Feculent Airway Casts due to Severe Constipation

Abstract

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a disabling and potentially lethal syndrome requiring prompt recognition and urgent interventions to prevent morbidity and mortality[1]. Although constipation is not generally recognized as a cause for ARDS or usually listed within the differential diagnosis, there have been case reports describing such an association[2,3]. We present the case of a patient with history of intermittent constipation presenting with progressive abdominal pain and an acute abdomen that required emergent surgical fecal decompaction. This was followed by hypoxemic respiratory distress leading to respiratory failure in the setting of severe constipation and aspirated feculent material. To our knowledge, this is the first published case report describing aspirated feculent material in a child with respiratory failure due to ARDS.