Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 163, Number 2, February 2001, 490-493

Agreement between Alternative Classifications of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

MAUREEN O. MEADE, GORDON H. GUYATT, RICHARD J. COOK, RYAN GROLL, JOHN R. KACHURA, MELANIE WIGG, DEBORAH J. COOK, ARTHUR S. SLUTSKY, and THOMAS E. STEWART

Department of Medicine, McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario; Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Ontario; Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario; Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Adult Critical Care Medicine Program, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; and Department of Medical Imaging, The Toronto Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

To examine the agreement between two classifications of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that are used interchangeably in clinical practice and clinical research, we classified 118 patients taking part in a randomized trial with respect to the presence of ARDS using the North American-European Consensus Committee (NAECC) and the Lung Injury Severity Score (LISS) criteria. The incidence of ARDS using NAECC criteria was 55.1% (95% confidence interval, 46.1% to 64.1%), and using the LISS criteria 61.9% (95% confidence interval, 53.1% to 70.6%). The p value on the difference between these proportions was 0.07. Raw agreement, chance-corrected agreement (kappa), and chance-independent agreement (phi) on the study occurrence of ARDS using the two classifications were, respectively, 0.73 (95% CI, 0.65 to 0.81), 0.46 (95% CI, 0.32 to 0.61), and 0.63 (95% CI, 0.41 to 0.79). No single component of either index contributed to disagreement to an appreciably greater extent than other components. Baseline characteristics and outcomes were similar among patients who developed ARDS according to either classification. We conclude that NAECC and LISS classifications resulted in similar estimates of the incidence of ARDS in this clinical trial, though patients were frequently classified as having ARDS with only one model. These discordant classifications had no prognostic importance.

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