Drowning in fresh or salt water: respective influence on respiratory function in a matched cohort study.

Introduction: For the most severe drowned patients, hypoxemia represents one of the major symptoms. As the influence of the type of water (fresh or salt water) on respiratory function is still unclear, the primary endpoint of this multicenter study was to compare hypoxemia according to the type of water.

Methods: Medical records of adult patients who experienced a drowning event and were consequently admitted to 10 ICU for acute respiratory failure were analyzed retrospectively using data collected over three consecutive summer periods.