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This article is part of a Supplement: Volume 10 Supplement 1
This article is part of a Supplement: Volume 10 Supplement 1
In the previous issue of Critical Care, Vermont and colleagues presented a simple but well-executed observational study describing the levels of chemokines in the serum of 58 children with meningococcal sepsis. T...
The choice of catecholamines for hemodynamic stabilisation in septic shock patients has been an ongoing debate for several years. Several studies have investigated the regional effects in septic patients. Beca...
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of activated protein C (aPC) on vascular function, endothelial injury, and haemostasis in a rabbit endotoxin-induced shock model.
Cardiovascular surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) has improved in past decades, but inflammatory activation in this setting is still unpredictable and is associated with several postoperative complicati...
Control strategies for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in critical care remain debated. Timely detection of MRSA carriers is crucial to an effective isolation policy. In this issue, Harbarth an...
Acquired antithrombin III (AT) deficiency may induce heparin resistance and premature membrane clotting during continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect ...
To evaluate the impact of recent evidence-based treatments for severe sepsis in routine clinical care requires an understanding of the underlying epidemiology, particularly with regard to trends over time. We ...
Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug available over the counter and on prescription for the management of pain and inflammation. Severe toxicity is rare following deliberate self-poisoning with i...
Invasive arterial blood pressure monitoring is a common practice in intensive care units (ICUs). Accuracy of invasive blood pressure monitoring is crucial in evaluating the cardiocirculatory system and adjusti...
The purpose of this study was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of exogenous surfactant administration to assess whether this therapy may be useful in adult patients with acute respiratory distr...
Disturbances in microcirculatory homeostasis have been hypothesized to play a key role in the pathophysiology of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and vasopressor-associated ischemic skin lesions. The effect...
Acute pancreatitis is a local inflammatory process that leads to a systemic inflammatory response in the majority of cases, and sometimes leads to multiple organ failure. It is obvious that coagulation and esp...
Identifying critically ill patients most likely to benefit from pre-emptive therapies will become increasingly important if therapies are to be used safely and cost-effectively. We sought to determine whether ...
Use of the prone position in patients with acute lung injury improves their oxygenation. Most of these patients die from multisystem organ failure and not from hypoxia, however. Moreover, there is some evidenc...
Epinephrine given during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may cause beta-mimetic complications in the postresuscitation phase. Vasopressin may be an alternative vasopressor drug during CPR. A subgroup analy...
Amino-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) is useful in evaluating heart failure, but its role in evaluating patients with shock in the intensive care unit (ICU) is not clear.
Despite studies clearly demonstrating significant benefit from increasing oxygen delivery in the peri-operative period in high risk surgical patients, the technique has not been widely accepted. This is due to...
We conducted the present study to evaluate the changes in serum total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in patients with severe sepsis and to investigate the association between serum TAC and clinical severity.
Nosocomial pneumonia is a significant cause of in-hospital morbidity and mortality. Oral care interventions have great potential to reduce the occurrence of nosocomial pneumonia. Studies using topical antisept...
Mechanical ventilation has been shown to cause lung injury and to have a significant impact on mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome. Theoretically, high frequency oscillatory ventilation seems an i...
Chemokines are a superfamily of small peptides involved in leukocyte chemotaxis and in the induction of cytokines in a wide range of infectious diseases. Little is known about their role in meningococcal sepsi...
The epidemiology of severe acute renal failure has dramatically changed in the past decade. Its leading cause is sepsis and the syndrome develops mostly in the intensive care unit as part of multiple organ dys...
The diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, according to the criteria as defined by the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer/Mycoses Study Group (EORTC/MSG), is difficult to es...
Although many pharmaceutical and technological advances are heavily touted, they have had relatively little impact on overall outcome improvements in the critically ill. Acting on the increasing recognition th...
Microcirculatory blood flow, and notably gut perfusion, is important in the development of multiple organ failure in septic shock. We compared the effects of dopexamine and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) with ...
Hospital patients can experience serious adverse events during their stay. To identify, review and treat these patients and to prevent serious adverse events, we introduced a medical emergency team (MET) servi...
Most literature on the medical emergency team (MET) relates to its effects on patient outcome. Less information exists on the most common causes of MET calls or on possible approaches to their management.
A health care system is a complex adaptive system. The effect of a single intervention, incorporated into a complex clinical environment, may be different from that expected. A national database such as the In...
We report a multiresistant Enterobacter cloacae outbreak in an intensive care unit, associated with mattresses and with antibacterial-treated and vapour-permeable polyurethane synthetic mattress covers of therape...
In disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) there is extensive crosstalk between activation of inflammation and coagulation. Endogenous anticoagulatory pathways are downregulated by inflammation, thus decr...
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of the administration of the coagulation factor XIII (F XIII) on intestinal functional capillary density, leukocyte adherence and mesenteric plasma extr...
The increasing problem of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria causing severe infections and the shortage of new antibiotics to combat them has led to the re-evaluation of polymyxins. These antibiotics w...
In seriously infected patients with acute renal failure and who require continuous renal replacement therapy, data on continuous infusion of ceftazidime are lacking. Here we analyzed the pharmacokinetics of ce...
Acid–base abnormalities are common in the intensive care unit (ICU). Differences in outcome exist between respiratory and metabolic acidosis in similar pH ranges. Some forms of metabolic acidosis (for example,...
During the past decade, critical care in the out-of-hospital setting has transcended the original emphasis on on-scene advanced life support interventions by doctors, paramedics, and nurses. Many of the life-s...
Changes in hemodynamic monitoring over the past 10 years have followed two paths. First, there has been a progressive decrease in invasive monitoring, most notably a reduction in the use of the pulmonary arter...
Treatment in the intensive care unit of patients with end-stage liver disease has been limited. Liver transplantation has been a major improvement in this and has become standard in the management of these pat...
Rapid diagnostic tests may allow early identification of previously unknown methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriers at intensive care unit (ICU) admission. The aim of this study was twofold: f...
Increases in reactive oxygen species (ROS) and tissue evidence of oxidative injury are common in patients with inflammatory processes or tissue injury. This has led to many clinical attempts to scavenge ROS an...
Liver failure is associated with reduced synthesis of clotting factors, consumptive coagulopathy, and platelet dysfunction. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of liver support using a molecular a...
Respiratory failure is one of the leading admission diagnoses on the critical care unit, and the journals have reflected this over the past few months. An understanding of the aetiology of pulmonary sepsis is ...
The ventilator and the endotracheal tube impose additional workload in mechanically ventilated patients breathing spontaneously. The total work of breathing (WOB) includes elastic and resistive work. In a benc...
Refractory septic shock has dismal prognosis despite aggressive therapy. The purpose of the present study is to report the effects of terlipressin (TP) as a rescue treatment in children with catecholamine refr...
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