Medicina intensiva
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Ischemic optic neuropathy is an uncommon of blindness in the critically ill patient that occurs especially in multiple trauma victims with no direct injury of the eyeball. We present the case of a young male patient with total bilateral blindness after profound hemorrhagic shock secondary to thoracoabdominal non-penetrating traumatism caused by crushing. A search of the literature was conducted, identifying prolonged arterial hypotension and sudden drop in hematocrit value as the most important risk factors.
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Comparative Study
[Role of coagulation in acute pulmonary lesion physiopathology. Parallelism with sepsis].
Acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute lung injury for a part of a devastating syndrome characterized by acute onset, hypoxemia and bilateral infiltrates in the chest x-ray with absence of heart failure signs. Acute lung injury is the response of the lung to a local or systemic aggression, resulting in local inflammation and coagulation disorders, this leading to increased inflammatory pulmonary edema. Acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome are associated with increased procoagulant and reduced fibrinolytic activities mainly in alveoli and interstitial spaces in the lung. ⋯ The only clinical intervention found to have a significant impact on mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome, despite the significant pro - gress in the understanding of the disease made over the past 10 years, is the use of low tidal volume ventilation. In severe sepsis, only recombinant human activated protein C administration has demonstrated a mortality reduction, together with faster improvement in respiratory dysfunction and shorter duration of mechanical ventilation. Future clinical trials should consider the potential benefit of anticoagulants administrated systemically or locally in the lungs to determine the role of anticoagulants in the treatment of acute pulmonary injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome.
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Comparative Study
[Bias in time delay in ICU admission as a mortality risk factor or "lead time bias"].
To assess if delay in admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), measured according to the prognostic estimation of survival in critical patients (EPEC) system, influences the final outcome of patients admitted to our ICU. ⋯ Our study does not make it possible to relate lead time bias with patient survival. Due to the EPEC design, it is possible to differentiate "physiopathological delay" (inappropriate detection of the critical situation) and "logistic delay" (conditioned by factors such as lack of available beds). Our study as well as the EPEC only considers the latter. It cannot be ruled out that the increase in mortality regarding prognosis is directly related with first type of delay and not with the overall lead time bias.
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Comparative Study
[Arterial oxygen saturation during ascent of a mountain higher than 8,000 meters].
Arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) diminishes with altitude. ⋯ During expeditions to mountains higher than 8,000 metres, mountaineers have extremely low values of SaO2, similar to those of patients with severe respiratory failure. SaO2 increases progressively with acclimatization. SaO2 on the summit could have been relatively high, probably because of hyperventilation.