2,833 publications from this institution
Mild therapeutic hypothermia is associated with higher blood glucose levels, increased blood glucose variability, and greater insulin requirements compared to the postrewarming normothermic phase. Increased blood glucose variability during therapeutic hypothermia is a predictor of inhospital mortality after cardiac arrest, independent of injury severity and mean blood glucose levels.
(Abstracted from Anesthesiology, 126(1):85–93, 2017) The purpose of this prospective, double-blind, randomized controlled trial was to gauge whether vasopressin is superior to norepinephrine in reducing postoperative complications in patients with vasoplegic syndrome. This complication, which presents in 5% to 25% of cardiac surgery patients, is characterized by low arterial pressure with either normal or elevated cardiac output but reduced systemic vascular resistance.
Sepsis continues to represent a major problem in intensive care units worldwide. Diagnosis and management are often complex due in part to the remarkably diverse nature of the septic patient. Indeed, sepsis can range in severity from mild systemic inflammation of little clinical importance through to a widespread severe inflammatory response with multiple organ failure and a mortality rate in excess of 50%. Sepsis can affect individuals of any age group, with no or multiple co-morbidities, and with many different ongoing diagnoses. It can occur as the result of infection by one or more of a multitude of microbial pathogens impacting on any of numerous different sites within the body. Given the huge complexity of sepsis and the diverse populations of patients it affects, simple definitions are of relatively little use and a more detailed framework which can be used to better characterize patients with sepsis has been proposed, much as the TNM classification (tumor size, nodal spread, metastases) has been successfully used in clinical oncology. In this chapter, we discuss the development of this PIRO system, and suggest how it may be used in the future to aid diagnosis, guide therapy, and improve prognostication.
Shortage of nurses on the ICU is not a new phenomenon, but has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The underlying reasons are relatively well-recognized, and include excessive workload, moral distress, and perception of inappropriate care, leading to burnout and increased intent to leave, setting up a vicious circle whereby fewer nurses result in increased pressure and stress on those remaining. Nursing shortages impact patient care and quality-of-work life for all ICU staff and efforts should be made by management, nurse leaders, and ICU clinicians to understand and ameliorate the factors that lead nurses to leave. Here, we highlight 10 broad areas that ICU clinicians should be aware of that may improve quality of work-life and thus potentially help with critical care nurse retention.