Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2014
Multicenter Study Clinical TrialCorticosteroids and Transition to Delirium in Patients With Acute Lung Injury.
Delirium is common in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU and associated with short- and long-term morbidity and mortality. The use of systemic corticosteroids is also common in the ICU. Outside the ICU setting, corticosteroids are a recognized risk factor for delirium, but their relationship with delirium in critically ill patients has not been fully evaluated. We hypothesized that systemic corticosteroid administration would be associated with a transition to delirium in mechanically ventilated patients with acute lung injury. ⋯ After adjusting for other risk factors, systemic corticosteroid administration is significantly associated with transitioning to delirium from a nondelirious state. The risk of delirium should be considered when deciding about the use of systemic corticosteroids in critically ill patients with acute lung injury.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2014
Multicenter Study Observational StudyEarly Postresuscitation Hypotension Is Associated With Increased Mortality Following Pediatric Cardiac Arrest.
To describe the association of systolic hypotension during the first 6 hours after successful resuscitation from pediatric cardiopulmonary arrest with in-hospital mortality. ⋯ In the first 6 hours following successful resuscitation from pediatric cardiac arrest, systolic hypotension was documented in 56% and was associated with a higher rate of in-hospital mortality and worse hospital discharge neurologic outcomes.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2014
Advantages of Strain Echocardiography in Assessment of Myocardial Function in Severe Sepsis: An Experimental Study.
Cardiovascular failure is an important feature of severe sepsis and mortality in sepsis. The aim of our study was to explore myocardial dysfunction in severe sepsis. ⋯ The present study demonstrates myocardial dysfunction in severe sepsis. Strain echocardiography reveals myocardial dysfunction before significant changes in ejection fraction and cardiac output and could prove to be a useful tool in clinical evaluation of septic patients.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2014
Leukocyte Infiltration and Activation of the NLRP3 Inflammasome in White Adipose Tissue Following Thermal Injury.
Severe thermal injury is associated with extreme and prolonged inflammatory and hypermetabolic responses, resulting in significant catabolism that delays recovery or even leads to multiple organ failure and death. Burned patients exhibit many symptoms of stress-induced diabetes, including hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and hyperlipidemia. Recently, the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich family (NLR), pyrin-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome has received much attention as the sensor of endogenous "danger signals" and mediator of "sterile inflammation" in type II diabetes. Therefore, we investigated whether the NLRP3 inflammasome is activated in the adipose tissue of burned patients, as we hypothesize that, similar to the scenario observed in chronic diabetes, the cytokines produced by the inflammasome mediate insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. ⋯ In summary, our study is the first to show activation of the inflammasome in burned humans, and our results provide impetus for further investigation of the role of the inflammasome in burn-induced hypermetabolism and, potentially, developing novel therapies targeting this protein complex for the treatment of stress-induced diabetes.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2014
Early Multimodal Outcome Prediction After Cardiac Arrest in Patients Treated With Hypothermia.
Therapeutic hypothermia and pharmacological sedation may influence outcome prediction after cardiac arrest. The use of a multimodal approach, including clinical examination, electroencephalography, somatosensory-evoked potentials, and serum neuron-specific enolase, is recommended; however, no study examined the comparative performance of these predictors or addressed their optimal combination. ⋯ Combination of clinical examination, electroencephalography reactivity, and serum neuron-specific enolase offers the best outcome predictive performance for prognostication of early postanoxic coma, whereas somatosensory-evoked potentials do not add any complementary information. Although prognostication of poor outcome seems excellent, future studies are needed to further improve prediction of good prognosis, which still remains inaccurate.