30 Mar 10
Posted in Critical Care, Infection at 21:47 by Laci
By P George and A Morris
Critical Care 2010;14:205
You are director of a large multi-disciplinary ICU. You have recently read that hospital-wide antibiotic stewardship programs have the potential to improve the quality and safety of care, and to reduce the emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms and overall costs. You are considering starting one of these programs in your ICU, but are concerned about the associated infrastructure costs. You are debating whether it is worth bringing the concept forward to your hospital’s administration to consider investing in.
Statement for debate
Antibiotic stewardship programs improve patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness in critically ill patients in the ICU.
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24 Mar 10
Posted in Mechanical ventilation, Tracheostomy at 1:07 by Laci
By Y Wu , Y Tsai , C Lan , C Huang , C Lee , K Kao and J Fu
Critical Care 2010, 14:R26
Mechanical ventilation of patients may be accomplished by either translaryngeal intubation or tracheostomy. While numerous ICU studies have compared various outcomes between the two techniques, there is no definitive consensus that tracheostomy is superior. Comparable studies have not been performed in a respiratory care center (RCC) setting.
Methods
This was a retrospective observational study of 985 tracheostomy and 227 translaryngeal intubated patients who received treatment in a 24-bed RCC between November 1999 and December 2005. Treatment and mortality outcomes were compared between tracheostomized and translaryngeal intubated patients, and the factors associated with positive outcomes in all patients were determined.
Results
Duration of RCC (22 vs. 14 days) and total hospital stay (82 vs. 64 days) and total mechanical ventilation days (53 vs. 41 days) were significantly longer in tracheostomized patients (all P<0.05). The rate of in-hospital mortality was significantly higher in the translaryngeal group (45% vs. 31%, P<0.05). There were no significant differences in weaning success between the groups (both were over 55%), nor RCC mortality. Due to significant baseline between group heterogeneity, case match analysis was performed. This analysis confirmed the whole cohort findings, except for the fact that there was only a trend for in-hospital mortality to be higher in the translaryngeal group (P=0.08). Stepwise logistic regression revealed that patients with a lower median severity of disease (APACHE II score <18) who were properly nourished (albumin >2.5 g/dL) or had normal metabolism (BUN <40 mg/dL) were more likely to be successfully weaned and survive (all P<0.05). Patients who were tracheostomized were also significantly more likely to survive (P<0.05)
Conclusions
These findings suggest that the type of mechanical ventilation does not appear to be an important determinant of weaning success in an RCC setting. Focused care administered by experienced providers may be more important for facilitating weaning success than the ventilation method used. However, our findings do suggest that tracheostomy may increase the likelihood of patient survival.
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23 Mar 10
Posted in Critical Care, Lactate at 1:04 by Laci
By A Nichol, M Egi, V Pettila, R Bellomo, C French, G Hart et al
Critical Care 2010, 14:R25
Higher lactate concentrations within the normal reference range (“relative hyperlactatemia”) are not considered clinically significant. We tested the hypothesis that relative hyperlactatemia is independently associated with an increased risk of hospital death.
Methods
Retrospective observational study of prospectively obtained intensive care database of 7155 consecutive critically ill patients admitted to the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of four Australian university hospitals. We assessed the relationship between ICU admission (LacADM), maximal (LacMAX) and time-weighted (LacTW) lactate levels and hospital outcome in all patients and in those patients whose LacADM (n=3964), LacMAX (n=2511) and LacTW (n=4584) lactate was under 2 mmol.L-1 (relative hyperlactatemia).
Results
We obtained 172,723 lactate measurements. Higher LacADM and LacTW concentration within the reference range was independently associated with increased hospital mortality (LacADM: odds ratio (OR) 2.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3-3.5, P=0.01; LacTW OR 3.7, 95% CI 1.9-7.00, P<0.0001). This significant association was first detectable at lactate concentrations > 0.75 mmol.L-1. Furthermore, in patients whose lactate never exceeded 2 mmol.L-1, higher LacTW remained strongly associated with higher hospital mortality (LacTW OR 4.8, 95% CI 1.8-12.4, P<0.001).
Conclusions
In critically ill patients, relative hyperlactataemia is independently associated with increased hospital mortality. Blood lactate concentrations >0.75 mmol.L-1 can be used by clinicians to identify patients at higher risk of death. The current reference range for lactate in the critically ill may need to be re-assessed.
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18 Mar 10
Posted in Sepsis at 0:02 by Laci
By C Pierrakos and J-L Vincent
Critical Care 2010, 14:R15
Biomarkers can be useful for identifying or ruling out sepsis, identifying patients who may benefit from specific therapies or assessing the response to therapy.
Methods
We used an electronic search of the PubMed database using the key words “sepsis” and “biomarker” to identify clinical and experimental studies which evaluated a biomarker in sepsis.
Results
The search retrieved 3370 references covering 178 different biomarkers.
Conclusions
Many biomarkers have been evaluated for use in sepsis. Most of the biomarkers had been tested clinically, primarily as prognostic markers in sepsis; relatively few have been used for diagnosis. None has sufficient specificity or sensitivity to be routinely employed in clinical practice. PCT and CRP have been most widely used, but even these have limited ability to distinguish sepsis from other inflammatory conditions or to predict outcome.
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