Chest
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Multicenter Study
Interobserver reliability of the chest radiograph in community-acquired pneumonia. PORT Investigators.
To evaluate the interobserver reliability of pulmonary radiographic findings in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). ⋯ In patients with CAP, two university radiologists identified the presence of infiltrate, multilobar disease, and pleural effusion with fair to good interobserver reliability. However, interobserver reliability for the pattern of infiltrate and the presence of air bronchograms was poor.
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Multicenter Study
Predicting the duration of mechanical ventilation. The importance of disease and patient characteristics.
To analyze the determinants of an individual patient's duration of mechanical ventilation and assess interhospital variations for average durations of ventilation. ⋯ For patients admitted to the ICU and ventilated on day 1, total duration of ventilation is primarily determined by admitting diagnosis and degree of physiologic derangement as measured by APS. An equation developed using multivariate regression techniques can accurately predict average duration of ventilation for groups of ICU patients, and we believe this equation will be useful for comparing ventilator practices between ICUs, controlling for patient differences in clinical trials of new therapies or weaning techniques, and as a quality improvement mechanism.