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Positional strategies have been proposed for mechanically ventilated patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Despite different physiological mechanisms involved, oxygenation improvement has been dem...
Optimal management of mechanical ventilation and weaning requires dynamic and collaborative decision making to minimize complications and avoid delays in the transition to extubation. In the absence of collabo...
A protocol of no sedation has been shown to reduce the time patients receive mechanical ventilation and to reduce intensive care and total hospital length of stay. The long-term psychological effects of this s...
Diabetes mellitus is increasingly prevalent and associated with significant end organ damage that one may presume to impact upon critical illness. However, Siegelaar and colleagues present data that suggest, e...
The incidence of vitamin D deficiency in critically ill patients has been reported to range from as low as 17% to as high as 79%. Data regarding the relationship between 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and outcomes...
Scales DC, Dainty K, Hales B, Pinto R, Fowler RA, Adhikari NK, Zwarenstein M: A multifaceted intervention for quality improvement in a network of intensive care units: a cluster randomized trial. JAMA 2011, 305:3...
Though the benefits of lung protective ventilation (LPV) in acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome (ALI/ARDS) have been known for more than a decade, widespread clinical adoption has been slow. ...
The original article was published in Critical Care 2011 15:R114
The PROTECT Investigators for the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group: Dalteparin versus Unfractionated Heparin in Critically Ill...
Aircraft carriers, electrical power grids, and wildland firefighting, though seemingly different, are exemplars of high reliability organizations (HROs) - organizations that have the potential for catastrophic...
The H1N1 flu pandemic led to a wider use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), proving its power in hypoxemic emergencies. The results obtained during this pandemic, more than any randomized trial, le...
In June 2011 the Canadian National Advisory Committee on Blood and Blood Products sponsored an international consensus conference on transfusion and trauma. A panel of 10 experts and two external advisors revi...
Reversing the immunoparalysis associated with septic shock remains a priority for improving the outcome of patients suffering from sepsis. The efficacy of future therapies may be better studied under an effect...
End-expiratory lung volume (EELV) is decreased in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and bedside EELV measurement may help to set positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). Nitrogen washout/washin for E...
The prognosis of patients hospitalized with acute heart failure (AHF) is poor and risk stratification may help clinicians guide care. The objectives of the Acute Heart Failure Database (AHEAD) registry are to ...
Invasive candidiasis is a frequent life-threatening complication in critically ill patients. Early diagnosis followed by prompt treatment aimed at improving outcome by minimizing unnecessary antifungal use rem...
Lactic acid was first discovered in human blood in 1843. Since then it has been used as a prognosticator of outcome in critical illness. Regardless of its etiology, lactate's presence and trend over time have ...
We review key research papers in cardiology and intensive care published during 2010 in Critical Care and quote related studies published in other journals if appropriate. Papers were grouped into the following c...
In this review, 21 original papers published last year in the respirology and critical care sections of Critical Care are classified and analyzed in the following categories: mechanical ventilation, lung recruitm...
This review will summarize some of the data published in 2010 and focus on papers published in Critical Care in regard to cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In particular, we discuss the latest res...
Infections remain among the most important concerns in critically ill patients. Early and reliable diagnosis of infection still poses difficulties in this setting but also represents a crucial step toward appr...
In 2010 Critical Care published a large number of articles on critical care aspects of neurologic and neurosurgical conditions. These aspects included investigation of diagnostic criteria for bacterial meningitis...
This review summarizes new insights in the pathophysiologic implications of inflammation and microvascular alterations in organ dysfunction, as well as genetic factor contribution, from clinical and experiment...
The nutrition dose truly absorbed by a patient is crucial information in the management or the investigation of nutrition during critical illness. In the present issue of Critical Care, assessment of nutritional ...
Sepsis continues to pose a clear challenge as one of the most difficult and costly problems to treat and prevent. Sepsis is caused by systemic or localized infections that damage the integrity of microcirculat...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with a profound immunological dysfunction manifested by a severe shift from T-helper type 1 (Th1) to T-helper type 2 (Th2) response. This predisposes patients to infe...
The triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) is an immunoreceptor whose role is to amplify the inflammatory response mediated by the engagement of Toll-like and NOD-like receptors. As the expr...
Hypoglycemia is consistently associated with an increased risk of death in hospital patients in general, patients treated in intensive care units, and type II diabetes patients recruited to large randomized co...
The aviation industry has made significant progress in identifying the skills and behaviors that result in effective teamwork. Its conceptualization of teamwork, development of training programs, and design of...
In animal models of systemic inflammation, the endogenous nucleoside adenosine controls inflammation and prevents organ injury. Dipyridamole blocks the cellular uptake of endogenous adenosine and increases the...
Mechanical ventilation (MV) has the potential to worsen pre-existing lung injury or even to initiate lung injury. Moreover, it is thought that injurious MV contributes to the overwhelming inflammatory response...
In modern critical care, the paradigm of 'therapeutic nutrition' is replacing traditional 'supportive nutrition'. Standard enteral formulas meet basic macro- and micronutrient needs; therapeutic enteral formul...
Copeptin has been proposed as a prognostic marker in acute illness. This study investigated the ability of copeptin to predict the disease outcome and cerebrovasospasm in the patients with aneurysmal subarachn...
Over 5,000 cases of invasive Candida species infections occur in the United Kingdom each year, and around 40% of these cases occur in critical care units. Invasive fungal disease (IFD) in critically ill patients ...
Communication failures are a significant contributor to medical errors that harm patients. Critical care delivery is a complex system of inter-professional work that is distributed across time, space, and mult...
There is a vast amount of information published regarding the impact of 2009 pandemic Influenza A (pH1N1) virus infection. However, a comparison of risk factors and outcome during the 2010-2011 post-pandemic p...
Controversy exists about the benefit of screening for prevention of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in intensive care units (ICUs) and recent studies have shown conflicting results. The aim of ...
The Erratum to this article has been published in Critical Care 2012 16:402
Serum concentrations of adhesion molecules may be connected to the pathogenesis of secondary brain injury after spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). This study posits the hypothesis that levels of adhes...
In the previous issue of Critical Care, Bojan and colleagues reported their experiences with high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) after pediatric cardiac surgery. A total of 120 patients were treated wit...
The analysis of flow and pressure waveforms generated by ventilators can be useful in the optimization of patient-ventilator interactions, notably in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. To d...
Sudden cardiac arrest is one of the most frequent causes of death in the world. In highly qualified emergency medical service (EMS) systems, including well-trained emergency physicians, spontaneous circulation...
Intracranial vascular complications are an important complication of acute bacterial meningitis. Ischemic stroke in meningitis is reported as a result of vasculitis, vasospasm, endocarditis or intraarterial th...
Computed tomography (CT) is considered the gold standard for quantification of global or regional lung aeration and lung mass. Quantitative CT, however, involves the exposure to ionizing radiation and requires...
Dynamic predictors of fluid responsiveness have made automated management of fluid resuscitation more practical. We present initial simulation data for a novel closed-loop fluid-management algorithm (LIR, Lear...
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