biotrauma biotrauma although the term has occasionally been used in other ways, in medical literature biotrauma is usually defined as a severe inflammatory response produced in the lungs of patients who breathe by means of a mechanical ventilator for a long period of time. the term was coined in a 1998 paper by l. n. tremblay and a. s. slutsky, titled ventilator-induced injury: from barotrauma to biotrauma. the message of that paper was that barotrauma caused by pressure differentials is only one of several types of lung damage that a ventilator can produce.