Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2016
Observational StudyFocused Critical Care Echocardiography: Development and Evaluation of an Image Acquisition Assessment Tool.
Little attention has been placed on assessment tools to evaluate image acquisition quality for focused critical care echocardiography. We designed a novel assessment tool to objectively evaluate the image acquisition skills of critical care trainees learning focused critical care echocardiography and examined the tool for evidence of validity. ⋯ Trainees' efficiency in focused critical care echocardiography image acquisition improved quickly in the first 10 studies, yet, it could not match with the performance of experienced physicians after 20 focused critical care echocardiography studies. The focused critical care echocardiography assessment tool demonstrated evidence of validity and could discern changes in trainees' image acquisition performance with increasing experience.
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Critical care medicine · Jun 2016
Randomized Controlled TrialTransfusion of 35-Day Stored RBCs in the Presence of Endotoxemia Does Not Result in Lung Injury in Humans.
Transfusion-related acute lung injury is the leading cause of transfusion-related mortality. Preclinical studies have shown that aged RBCs can induce transfusion-related acute lung injury in the presence of a "first hit" (e.g., sepsis). Clinical studies, however, show conflicting results on this matter. We tested whether maximally stored RBCs are able to induce lung injury in the presence of a "first hit" in humans (Dutch Trial Register: NTR4455). ⋯ Transfusion of 35-day stored autologous RBCs in the presence of endotoxemia does not result in lung injury in humans.