... elsewhere,
notwithstanding the benefits of oral decontamination,
perhaps this is a strategy we should all be adopting.
Get well
There is definitely growing interest in noninvasive ventilation
(NIV); more so where inspiratory ... and no underlying predisposition to
respiratory failure, perhaps for the first time.
Choose best?
Finally, which is the expert choice, and on what basis? Perr...
... is a major cause of critical illness, with a mortality rate in
the range of 3 0–5 0%. Two landmark papers have been
published in the past 18 months that have significantly furthered
our ability ... could now be writing a very
different report.
To confuse matters further, as in the antithrombin III trial [4],
heparin administration, which was not part of the trial protocol,
appears to...
... concentrations.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the overall conclusion was that
Commentary
Recently published papers: Asking the unanswerable –
measuring the immeasurable and decontaminating the infected
Hardeep S Benepal
1
and ... be the preferred treatment aim.
The authors must be applauded for their honesty in that they
accept and demonstrate that glucose levels in the ICU are
difficult t...
... pulmonary disease
patients. However, enthusiasm for this technique in other
Commentary
Recently published papers: all the usual suspects and carbon
dioxide
Jonathan Ball
Lecturer in Intensive Care ... two
further large-scale, multicentre trials into the use of
pulmonary artery catheters.
An American group published data from 1010 intensive care
unit admissions with severe sepsis and per...
... treated with
linezolid 600 mg or vancomycin 1 g every 12 hours for
7–2 1 days, both combined with aztreonam (a monobactam
specific to Gram-negative organisms). Clinical cure rates
assessed 1 2–2 8 ... caloric
intake of 138 adult patients on the medical ICU was recorded
and grouped into <25%, 2 5–4 9%, 5 0–7 4% and ≥75% of
their recommended daily calorie intake. Nosocomial
bloodstr...
... arterial. Of
these the most common were cerebral infarction, of which
two were fatal, followed by myocardial infarction, most of
which were followed by good recovery.
Fass and coworkers [5] investigated ... secretion production) as
well as the time to extubation and length of stay. All were
significantly decreased in the potassium dichromate group.
Interestingly, β
2
-agonists (standard...
... tomography; Cv–aCO
2
= central venous–arterial carbon dioxide difference; GCS = Glasgow Coma Scale;
HRQOL = health related quality of life; ICU = intensive care unit; Mv–aCO
2
= mixed venous–arterial ... and lack of consensus
on how to measure HRQOL. They urge the need for further
research, which must be well designed, prospective and use
validated, reliable and responsive measures of HRQ...
... hypertension, and in the light of
escalating costs, the use of inhaled NO – outside of well
designed clinical trials – cannot be defended. By contrast,
evidence is accumulating that NO plays ... latter. The treatment group achieved greater cumulative,
negative fluid balance at 72 hours (–5 480 ml versus
–1 490 ml; P < 0.01), in part because of a greater
requirement for intra...
... differences in the baseline characteristics of the
two groups as well as non-standardisation of volume
Commentary
Recently published papers: Treating sepsis, measuring troponin
and managing the obese
Nicholas ... chance to
make the diagnosis by correlating the troponin test with
other tests – certainly the ECG – in all patients.
Treating the obese in ICU
A subject rarely out of...
... North America to assess treatment patterns and
outcome associated with de-escalation therapy. This involves
initial broad-spectrum antibiotic administration followed by
targeted therapy (de-escalation) ... commonly methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (14.8%) and Pseudomonas
Commentary
Recently published papers: pneumonia, hypothermia and the
elderly
Christopher Bouch and Gareth Wi...