IL6 and acute respiratory distress syndrome: Similarly, because BALF levels of IL‐6 are early biomarkers of lung injury (Stüber et al., 2002; Tremblay et al., 1997; Veldhuizen et al., 2001) and predictive of morbidity/mortality in ARDS (Frank et al., 2006; Parsons et al., 2005; Ranieri et al., 1999; Remick et al., 2005), BALF IL‐6 levels were compared across groups (Figure 5b).