AGER and acute respiratory distress syndrome: When comparing non-ARDS septic patients who needed IMV to septic patients with ARDS, RAGE, SP-D and Ang-2 were significantly different (P = 0.001, P = 0.014 and P = 0.003 respectively) (Supplementary Table S2 online), and RAGE had the best predictive value for ARDS (Fig. 1b).