Page 133 of 376
Several studies have suggested a role of candida in infected cases of severe acute pancreatitis. This commentary reports high incidence and mortality rates of candida infection in this setting and demonstrates...
Post-operative delirium is a common and dangerous complication of cardiac surgery. Many risk factors for delirium have been identified, but its pathogenesis remains largely elusive. A study by Kazmierski and c...
Translating research to the bedside can present significant challenges in the complex ICU environment. In this issue of Critical Care, de Jong and colleagues report on a quality improvement project (NURSE-DO) tha...
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a potentially devastating form of acute inflammatory lung injury with a high short-term mortality rate and significant long-term consequences among survivors. Supp...
Previous studies have shown that patients with diabetes mellitus appear to have a lower prevalence of acute lung injury. We assumed that insulin prescribed to patients with diabetes has an anti-inflammatory pr...
Nuclear factor (NF)-κB is central to the pathogenesis of inflammation in acute lung injury, but also to inflammation resolution and repair. We wished to determine whether overexpression of the NF-κB inhibitor ...
A decrease in disease-specific mortality over the last twenty years has been reported for patients admitted to United States (US) hospitals, but data for intensive care patients are lacking. The aim of this st...
In-hospital end-of-life care outside the ICU is a new and increasing aspect of practice for intensive care physicians in countries where rapid response teams have been introduced. As more of these patients die...
According to the World Health Organization, traumatic injuries worldwide are responsible for over 5 million deaths annually. Post-traumatic bleeding caused by traumatic injury-associated coagulopathy is the le...
Adopting the 45° semirecumbent position in mechanically ventilated critically ill patients is recommended, as it has been shown to reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Although the benefits...
Non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIV) has proved to be an excellent technique in selected critically ill patients with different forms of acute respiratory failure. However, NIV can fail on account of the ...
To provide up-to-date information on the prognostic factors associated with 28-day mortality in a cohort of septic shock patients in intensive care units (ICUs).
Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) may be an early marker of acute kidney injury (AKI), but elevated NGAL occurs in a wide range of systemic diseases. Because intensive care patients have high l...
Antiplatelet therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases is common in the ageing population. Whether this therapy exacerbates brain injury after head trauma is an important, but unsettled, topic. In t...
Higher compliance with Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) recommendations has been associated with lower mortality. The authors evaluate differences in compliance with SSC 6-hour bundle according to hospital entr...
Surrogate or 'proxy' measures of brain temperature are used in the routine management of patients with brain damage. The prevailing view is that the brain is 'hotter' than the body. The polarity and magnitude ...
This article is part of a Supplement: Volume 17 Supplement 2
The original article was published in Critical Care 2013 17:P422
This article is part of a Supplement: Volume 17 Supplement 2
The original article was published in Critical Care 2013 17:P1
The usefulness of n-3 fatty acids, γ-linolenic acid and antioxidants in the critically ill is controversial. I propose that adverse outcome in the critically ill is due to excess production of proinflammatory ...
High-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) seems ideal for lung protection in acute respiratory distress syndrome, but randomized trials have not shown a mortality reduction. The initial oxygenation respons...
The overall outcome of septic shock has been recently improved. We sought to determine whether this survival gain extends to the high-risk subgroup of patients with cirrhosis.
We sought to investigate whether the use of balanced solutions reduces the incidence of hyperchloraemic acidosis without increasing the risk for intracranial hypertension in patients with severe brain injury.
Evidence-based recommendations are needed to guide the acute management of the bleeding trauma patient. When these recommendations are implemented patient outcomes may be improved.
Critically ill patients are predisposed to venous thromboembolism. We hypothesized that higher doses of enoxaparin would improve thromboprophylaxis without increasing the risk of bleeding. Peak anti-factor Xa ...
In medical emergencies, supplemental oxygen is often administrated routinely. Most paramedics and physicians believe that high concentrations of oxygen are life-saving [1]. Over the last century, however, a pleth...
Relationships between blood glucose concentration and outcome and also the optimum management of blood glucose remain highly contentious issues for critical care practitioners. Among the many controversies is ...
A quality-improvement project was conducted to reduce severe pain and stress-related events while moving ICU-patients.
Mortality of patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) remains high. The objectives of this study were to assess the factors associated with outcome of patients undergoing ECMO in a large ECMO ref...
Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is one of the most promising candidate biomarkers of renal injury, with expression in renal tissue increasing dramatically after ischemia-reperfusion injury bu...
Hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, and increased glucose variability have each been shown to be independently associated with increased risk of mortality in the critically ill. Sechterberger and colleagues have comp...
Data are sparse as to whether obesity influences the risk of death in critically ill patients with septic shock. We sought to examine the possible impact of obesity, as assessed by body mass index (BMI), on ho...
Augmented renal clearance (ARC) is an important determinant of antibiotic exposure in critically ill patients, and identifying patients at risk is therefore an important goal. There is a growing body of eviden...
Prior reports suggest that restrictive ICU visitation policies can negatively impact patients and their loved ones. However, visitation practices in US ICUs, and the hospital factors associated with them, are ...
Severe sepsis is associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality, placing a high burden on healthcare resources. We aimed to study outcomes in the five years after severe sepsis.
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is commonly observed in the intensive care unit (ICU), where it can be caused by a variety of factors. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of urinary angi...
The aim of this study was to derive a novel prognostic score for mortality in paediatric meningococcal sepsis (MS) based on readily available laboratory markers.
Hepatobiliary elimination of endo- and xenobiotics is affected by different variables including hepatic perfusion, hepatocellular energy state and functional integrity of transporter proteins, all of which are...
In the previous issue of Critical Care, Jung and colleagues report on the preventive effects of hypercapnia on ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD) under controlled ventilation. Possibly, a combina...
The duration of red blood cell (RBC) storage before transfusion may alter RBC function and supernatant and, therefore, influence the incidence of complications or even mortality.
The pathophysiology of sepsis consists of two phases. A first phase characterized by a substantial increase of pro-inflammatory mediators including cytokines and systemic inflammatory markers, and a second pha...
Contemporary information on mechanical ventilation (MV) use in emerging countries is limited. Moreover, most epidemiological studies on ventilatory support were carried out before significant developments, suc...
Marked dysnatremia is associated with increased mortality in patients admitted to intensive care. However, new evidence suggests that even mild deviations from normal and simple variability of sodium values ma...
Previous studies using Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN)/RIFLE criteria to classify early initiation of renal replacement therapy (RRT) have defined it as the therapy started in less severe AKIN/RIFLE stages....
Critical Care