Medicina intensiva
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Cerebral vasospasm remains a leading cause of death and disability in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. When vasospasm becomes refractory to maximal medical treatment, endovascular therapies may be considered as an option to increase cerebral blood flow to prevent cerebral infarction. Endovascular techniques include transluminal balloon angioplasty and intra-arterial infusion of vasorelaxants. This article reviews the various endovascular techniques for the treatment of cerebral vasospasm and discusses the mechanisms of action, techniques of administration, clinical results, and limitations of these treatment strategies.
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Review Comparative Study
[Patient data management systems or unit data management systems. Two clinical management perspectives in Intensive Medicine].
The need of availability of information able to describe the activity performed in ICU has two different sides. The first related with the monitoring of the patient himself, his clinical situation changes and the checking of attitudes and reactions of the clinical team related to these changes. ⋯ Industry tried to develop potent instruments (informatized) able to
information from patient monitoring systems in order to cope with the first quoted need (the so called patient data management systems [PDMS]), but has not yet be able to cross the line between the individual patient and the global unit activity. Authors emphasize the need of having the unit data management systems (UDMS), a not solved problem, as a complement on real time on line information obtained from patients. -
Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a neurologic emergency and often a neurologic catastrophe. Nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage is characterized by the extravasation of blood into the spaces covering the central nervous system. The leading cause of SAH is rupture of an intracranial aneurysm, which accounts for about 80-85% of cases. ⋯ Intensive care plays a more important role in the management of SAH than in any other neurological disorder. Excellence in neurologic diagnosis, in operative neurosurgery or neuroradiologic procedures must be accompanied by excellence in Intensive Care. This review emphasizes treatment in the Intensive Care Unit, surgical and endovascular therapeutic options and the current state of treatment of major complications such as rebleeding, cerebral vasospasm and acute hydrocephalus.
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Organ transplant constitutes one of the most encouraging advances in the history of the medicine. The organ transplants that were a distant challenge in the seventies currently are a routine procedure in the medical practice that has contributed to extending survival and quality of life in the general population. Spain has reached the highest rate for donation and transplants per one million inhabitants worldwide, this extraordinary health care work being a combined achievement of Spanish Health Care System. The objective of this article is to review the indications of solid organ transplants and their long-term outcomes, evaluating the impact on the health-related quality of life in solid organ transplant recipients.
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Review Comparative Study
[Up-date in spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage].
Non-aneurismatic spontaneous cerebral hemorrhage or intracranial hemorrhage accounts for 10-15% of total cerebral vascular accidents. Depending on its site it can may be intraparenchymal or intraventricular. The most frequent location is in the basal ganglia and its predominant etiology is poorly-controlled arterial hypertension. ⋯ Cerebral hemorrhage is not a monophasic phenomenon which abates immediately, because the hematoma continues to increase in the first 24 hours. Due to this reason and because of their characteristics of the disease itself, these are critical patients who must be admitted in to Intensive Care Unit where hemodynamic and cardiorespiratory control should be made as well as strict monitoring of the awareness level and remaining neuromonitoring standard parameters. In this paper, we review some aspects of the epidemiology, physiopathology, clinical presentation, diagnosis and the different therapeutic options, performing an up-date on the treatment of intracranial hemorrhage from both the medical and surgical point of view.