Articles: critical-care.
-
Supplemental oxygen administration to critically ill patients is ubiquitous in the intensive care unit (ICU). Uncertainty persists as to whether hyperoxia is benign in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly in regard to their long-term functional neurological outcomes. ⋯ No associations were observed between hyperoxia in ICU during the first 24 h and adverse neurological outcome at 6 months in ventilated TBI patients.
-
Multicenter Study
Decision-making around admission to intensive care in the UK pre-COVID-19: a multicentre ethnographic study.
Predicting who will benefit from admission to an intensive care unit is not straightforward and admission processes vary. Our aim was to understand how decisions to admit or not are made. We observed 55 decision-making events in six NHS hospitals. ⋯ They were rarely explicit in balancing burdens and benefits of intensive care for patients, so consistency and equity cannot be judged. The use of a framework for intensive care admission decisions that reminds doctors to seek patient or family views and encourages explicit balancing of burdens and benefits could improve decision-making. However, a supportive, adequately resourced context is also needed.
-
J Cardiothorac Surg · Mar 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyActive clearance vs conventional management of chest tubes after cardiac surgery: a randomized controlled study.
Chest tubes are routinely used after cardiac surgery to evacuate shed mediastinal blood. Incomplete chest drainage due to chest tube clogging can lead to retained blood after cardiac surgery. This can include cardiac tamponade, hemothorax, bloody effusions and postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF). Prior published non randomized studies have demonstrated that active tube clearance (ATC) of chest tubes can reduce retained blood complications prompting the ERAS Cardiac Society guidelines to recommend this modality. ⋯ In this RCT, the implementation of active clearance of chest tubes reduced re-exploration and chest tube clogging in patients after cardiac surgery further supporting recommendations to consider this modality postoperatively.
-
Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2021
Multicenter StudyTrends in Intensive Care for Patients with COVID-19 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Rationale: By describing trends in intensive care for patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) we aim to support clinical learning, service planning, and hypothesis generation. Objectives: To describe variation in ICU admission rates over time and by geography during the first wave of the epidemic in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; to describe trends in patient characteristics on admission to ICU, first-24-hours physiology in ICU, processes of care in ICU and patient outcomes; and to explore deviations in trends during the peak period. Methods: A cohort of 10,741 patients with COVID-19 in the Case Mix Program national clinical audit from February 1 to July 31, 2020, was used. ⋯ Many variables exhibited u-shaped or n-shaped curves during the peak. Conclusions: The population of patients with COVID-19 admitted to ICUs, and the processes of care in ICUs, changed over the first wave of the epidemic. After adjustment for important risk factors, there was a substantial improvement in patient outcomes.
-
Multicenter Study
Performance of nasal methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus screening for intra-abdominal infections in critically ill adult patients.
Intra-abdominal infections (IAIs) are a common reason for intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an uncommon pathogen in IAIs. Although more data are available in the setting of non-abdominal sources, there are limited data on the performance of nasal MRSA screening for MRSA IAIs. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of nasal MRSA screening for MRSA IAIs in critically ill adult patients. ⋯ Among critically ill adult patients with IAIs, a negative nasal MRSA screen within 30 days may help to empirically exclude MRSA as a causative pathogen.