Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Mar 2007
Practice guidelines as multipurpose tools: a qualitative study of noninvasive ventilation.
Although practice guidelines for noninvasive ventilation (NIV) for patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF) have the potential to improve processes of care and patient outcomes, clinicians' views about life support technology guidelines are not well understood. The objective was to understand the knowledge about and attitudes toward an NIV guideline for patients with ARF and potential barriers to its use. ⋯ This qualitative study illustrated how the NIV guideline at our institution is understood as a tool that facilitates the multidisciplinary care of patients with ARF. Guideline use may be enhanced through education to improve guideline awareness and increase comfort with recommended practices. Developers should be aware of the role of guidelines for purposes other than bedside decision making for individual patients.
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Critical care medicine · Mar 2007
Negative signaling contributes to T-cell anergy in trauma patients.
Maintenance of postinjury T-lymphocyte immune paralysis or anergy could result from failure to activate costimulatory receptors during T-cell receptor activation and/or from chronic stimulation of a competing set of elevated corepressor receptors. Our objective was to assess whether elevated posttrauma T-lymphocyte surface expression of corepressor receptors was associated with immunodepressed lymphocyte responses and corresponded to increased inhibitory and decreased activating signal transduction molecules. ⋯ Up-regulated corepressor receptor expression is novelly shown to characterize trauma patients' anergic T cells and correlate with predominance of inhibitory overactivating signal transduction molecules during T-cell stimulation. This could contribute to postinjury immunosuppression.
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Critical care medicine · Mar 2007
The ICU trial: a new admission policy for cancer patients requiring mechanical ventilation.
Cancer patients requiring mechanical ventilation are widely viewed as poor candidates for intensive care unit (ICU) admission. We designed a prospective study evaluating a new admission policy titled The ICU Trial. ⋯ Survival was 40% in mechanically ventilated cancer patients who survived to day 5 and 21.8% overall. If these results are confirmed in future interventional studies, we recommend ICU admission with full-code management followed by reappraisal on day 6 in all nonbedridden cancer patients for whom lifespan-extending cancer treatment is available.
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Critical care medicine · Mar 2007
Role of interleukin-8 and growth-regulated oncogene-alpha in the chemotactic migration of all-trans retinoic acid-treated promyelocytic leukemic cells toward alveolar epithelial cells.
Although all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) can treat acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), it also causes retinoic acid syndrome with presentations similar to acute respiratory distress syndrome. We investigated the role of interleukin (IL)-8 and growth-regulated oncogene (GRO)-alpha in the chemotactic transmigration of ATRA-treated NB4 (ATRA-NB4) APL cells toward A549 alveolar epithelial cells. ⋯ IL-8 and GRO-alpha secreted from alveolar epithelial cells play an important role in the cell-cell interaction involved in the chemotactic transmigration of ATRA-treated APL cells toward alveolar epithelial cells.
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Critical care medicine · Mar 2007
Evaluating the management of septic shock using patient simulation.
Develop a scoring system that can assess the management of septic shock by individuals and teams. ⋯ Objective measures of both knowledge-based and behavioral skills pertinent to the management of septic shock were made. Scores identified both adequate and poor levels of performance. Such assessments can be used to benchmark clinical skills of individuals and groups over time and may allow the identification of interventions that improve clinical effectiveness in sepsis management.