Current opinion in critical care
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Historically, most evidence supporting emergency airway management strategies have been limited to small series, retrospective analyses and extrapolation from other settings (i.e. the operating room). Over the past year, several large, randomized clinical trials have offered new findings to inform emergency airway management techniques. ⋯ These studies offer new findings to inform the practice of emergency airway management. Bougie use should be considered as a first-line approach in emergency intubation. SGA-based strategies should be considered as a first-line approach in the management of OHCA.
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Despite the improvements in its management, community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) still exhibits high global morbidity and mortality rates, especially in elderly patients. This review focuses on the most recent findings on the epidemiology, cause, diagnosis and management of CAP. ⋯ It is time to apply all the knowledge generated in the last decade in order to optimize the management of CAP.
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The volume of bariatric and nonbariatric surgical procedures on obese patients is dramatically increasing worldwide over the past years. In this review, we discuss the physiopathlogy of respiratory function during anesthesia in obese patients, the stratification of perioperative risk to develop intraoperative and postoperative pulmonary complications, the optimization of airway management, and perioperative ventilation, including postoperative respiratory assistance. ⋯ Obese patients are at higher risk of perioperative complications, mainly associated with those related to the respiratory function. An appropriate preoperative evaluation, intraoperative management, and postoperative support and monitoring is essential to improve outcome and increase the safety of the surgical procedure.
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Timely identification of high-risk surgical candidates facilitate surgical decision-making and allows appropriate tailoring of perioperative management strategies. This review aims to summarize the recent advances in perioperative risk stratification. ⋯ Perioperative risk estimation is multidimensional including validated indices, biomarkers, functional capacity estimation, and intraoperative hemodynamics. Identification and implementation of targeted strategies which mitigate predicted risk remains a greater challenge.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Dec 2018
ReviewMajor surgery and the immune system: from pathophysiology to treatment.
The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the immune response to major surgery, and the ways in which it may be modulated to improve postoperative outcomes. ⋯ The immune system is critical to the host response to tissue injury occurring due to surgery. However, the physiological processes required to resolve the surgical insult can also contribute to sequelae such as cognitive decline, pneumonia and acute kidney injury. Our understanding of the immune pathogenesis underlying these complications is improving, leading to interest in the development of immunomodulatory therapies, which aim to permit host defence whilst ameliorating postoperative complications.