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Some patients with hypotensive shock do not respond to usual doses of vasopressor therapy. Very little is known about outcomes after high-dose vasopressor therapy (HDV). We sought to characterize survival among patients with shock requiring HDV. We also evaluated the possible utility of stress-dose corticosteroid therapy in these patients. ⋯ One in six patients with shock survived to 90 days after HDV. The majority of nonsurvivors died after withdrawal or withholding of life support therapy. A minority of patients underwent CPR. Additionally, stress-dose corticosteroid therapy appears reasonable in patients with shock requiring HDV.
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The United States Critical Illness and Injury Trials (USCIIT) Group is an inclusive, grassroots "network of networks" with the dual missions of fostering investigator-initiated hypothesis testing and developing recommendations for strategic plans at a national level. The USCIIT Group's transformational approach enlists multidisciplinary investigative teams across institutions, critical illness and injury professional organizations, federal agencies that fund clinical and translational research, and industry partners. The USCIIT Group is endorsed by all major critical illness and injury professional organizations spanning the specialties of anesthesiology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, neurology, nursing, pediatrics, pharmacy and nutrition, surgery and trauma, and respiratory and physical therapy. ⋯ More than 200 investigators are now involved across > 30 academic and community hospitals. Collectively, USCIIT Group investigators have enrolled > 10,000 patients from academic and community hospitals in studies during the last 3 years. To keep our readership "ahead of the curve," this article provides a vision for critical illness and injury research based on (1) programmatic organization of large-scale, multicentered collaborative studies and (2) annual strategic planning at a national scale across disciplines and stakeholders.
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The sterile conditions used when inserting a central venous catheter (CVC) might be thought to decrease the contamination rate of blood cultures taken at CVC insertion; however, a previous retrospective study showed the opposite, that such blood cultures are contaminated more frequently than peripheral venipuncture blood cultures. The current study explored whether use of the CVC nonwire hub as a source of blood cultures decreased contamination while maintaining detection of true pathogens. ⋯ A higher proportion of blood cultures taken from the CVC lumen exposed to the guidewire were contaminated when compared with nonwire hub cultures; detection of true pathogens was equivalent. To limit detrimental sequelae of blood culture contamination, blood cultures obtained at CVC insertion should be taken from the nonwire hub.
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Thrombocytosis, often considered a marker of normal inflammatory reaction of infections, has been recently associated with increased mortality in hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). We assessed the characteristics and outcomes of patients with CAP and thrombocytosis (platelet count ≥ 4 × 105/mm3) compared with thrombocytopenia (platelet count < 105/mm3) and normal platelet count. ⋯ Thrombocytosis in patients with CAP is associated with poor outcome, complicated pleural effusion, and empyema. The presence of thrombocytosis in CAP should encourage ruling out respiratory complication and could be considered for severity evaluation.
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Airway inflammation is considered a central component of asthma and, therefore, international guidelines recommend antiinflammatory medications. We describe the clinical history of a 34-year-old woman with airway hyperresponsiveness and asthma who had a reduced ability to mount an inflammatory response due to two unrelated and rare genetic conditions: Fanconi anemia and incontinentia pigmenti. Absence of eosinophils in blood and sputum led to a successful reduction in the dose of corticosteroids without loss of asthma control demonstrating the clinical utility of monitoring treatment using biomarkers and the importance of recognizing the components of airway diseases that contribute to symptoms.