Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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The rapid emergence and dissemination of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms in ICUs worldwide constitute a problem of crisis dimensions. The root causes of this problem are multifactorial, but the core issues are clear. ⋯ Appropriate antibiotic stewardship in ICUs includes not only rapid identification and optimal treatment of bacterial infections in these critically ill patients, based on pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic characteristics, but also improving our ability to avoid administering unnecessary broad-spectrum antibiotics, shortening the duration of their administration, and reducing the numbers of patients receiving undue antibiotic therapy. Either we will be able to implement such a policy or we and our patients will face an uncontrollable surge of very difficult-to-treat pathogens.
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The most common cause of acute kidney injury (AKI) in hospitalized patients is sepsis. However, the molecular pathways and mechanisms that mediate septic AKI are not well defined. Experiments performed over the past 20 years suggest that there are profound differences in the pathogenesis between septic and ischemic AKI. ⋯ This failure is likely due to the protean nature of septic AKI, whereby different patients present at different points along the immunologic spectrum. While one patient may benefit from targeted therapy at one end of the spectrum, another patient at the other end may be harmed by the same therapy. We propose that a next important step in septic AKI research will be to identify where patients lie on the immunologic spectrum in order to appropriately target therapies at the inflammatory cascade, TLRs, and possibly apoptosis.
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Infectious complications, particularly in the respiratory tract of critically ill patients, are related to increased mortality. Severe infection is part of a multiple system illness and female patients with severe sepsis have a worse prognosis compared to males. Kallistatin is a protective hormokine released during monocyte activation and low levels in the setting of septic shock can predict adverse outcomes. ⋯ New studies have suggested strategies to identify patients at risk for resistant pathogen infection and therapies that optimize efficacy, without the overuse of broad-spectrum therapy in patients with healthcare-associated pneumonia. Innovative strategies using optimized dosing of antimicrobials, maximizing the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of drugs in critically ill patients, and newer routes of drug delivery are being explored to combat drug-resistant pathogens. We summarize the major clinical studies on respiratory infections in critically ill patients published in 2013.
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Delirium is common in adult intensive care, with validated tools for measurement, known risk factors and adverse neurocognitive outcomes. We aimed to determine what is known about pediatric delirium in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). ⋯ High-quality research to determine the accuracy of delirium screening tools in the PICU are required before prevalence, risk factors and outcomes can be determined and before a routine screening tool can be recommended. Direct comparisons of the p-CAM-ICU and CAP-D(R) should be performed.
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This review documents important progress made in 2013 in the field of critical care respirology, in particular with regard to acute respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Twenty-five original articles published in the respirology and critical care sections of Critical Care are discussed in the following categories: pre-clinical studies, protective lung ventilation--how low can we go, non-invasive ventilation for respiratory failure, diagnosis and prognosis in acute respiratory distress syndrome and respiratory failure, and promising interventions for acute respiratory distress syndrome.