Langenbeck's archives of surgery
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Langenbecks Arch Surg · Aug 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyEarly tracheostomy decreases ventilation time but has no impact on mortality of intensive care patients: a randomized study.
Long-term ventilation in intensive care units (ICUs) is associated with several problems such as increased mortality, increased rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and prolonged time of hospitalization, and thus leads to enormous healthcare expenditure. While the influence of tracheostomy on VAP incidence, duration of ventilation, and time of hospitalization has already been analyzed in several studies, the timing of the tracheostomy procedure on patient's mortality is still controversial. The aim of our study was to investigate whether early tracheostomy improved outcome in critically ill patients. ⋯ Despite many advantages like reduced time of ventilation and hospitalization, early tracheostomy is not associated with decreased mortality in critically ill patients.