... am Main and was internally funded. The study is independent of any pharmaceutical interest.Author details1Clinic of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy,University Hospital ... [8,21-23] and for the detec-tion of cytokines in the BAL in the context of ventilator-associated lung injury [24]. No data exist,however, on whether the technique of blind suctioning and the collection ... endothelial cell lining of the lung, impairment of the alveolar-capillary barrier, anactivation of the innate inflammatory response and sub-sequent recruitment of leukocytes, monocytes and tissuemacrophages...