Vasopressors for Septic Shock (from the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines) See more from Surviving Sepsis Guidelines* *PulmCCM is not affiliated with the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. Vasopressors are provided for septic shock that does not respond to fluid resuscitation. Norepinephrine (Levophed), epinephrine, vasopressin, phenylephrine (Neo-Synephrine), and dopamine are the most commonly used vasopressors for septic shock. To achieve adequate fluid [… read more]
Following “Surviving Sepsis” Guidelines Not Always the Best Care By Dr. Philippe Rola First of all, I would like to commend those involved in the Surviving Sepsis Campaign’s Guidelines. It is a tremendous endeavour that, without a doubt, has heightened awareness and their growing implementation has and will save many lives. I would, however, also [… read more]
Surviving Sepsis Guidelines 2013 Review & Update The Surviving Sepsis Campaign launched in 2002 as a collaboration between the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, with the shared goal of reducing deaths from sepsis and septic shock around the world. PulmCCM is not affiliated with the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines [… read more]
Diagnosis of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock (from the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines) See all the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines PulmCCM is not affiliated with the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines or the Surviving Sepsis Campaign which is at http://www.survivingsepsis.org. Sepsis is defined as an infection (definite or suspected) with systemic manifestations (any 2 from a list). This definition may [… read more]
Initial Volume Resuscitation and EGDT for Severe Sepsis/Septic Shock See all the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines PulmCCM is not affiliated with the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines or the Surviving Sepsis Campaign which is at http://www.survivingsepsis.org. An approach including early goal directed therapy with aggressive initial fluid resuscitation has been considered a cornerstone of initial therapy for severe sepsis [… read more]
Initial Antibiotic / Antimicrobial Therapy in Severe Sepsis/Septic Shock For Sepsis, Use the Right Antibiotics at the Right Time (= As Early As Possible) See all the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines PulmCCM is not affiliated with the Surviving Sepsis Guidelines or the Surviving Sepsis Campaign which is at http://www.survivingsepsis.org. The short version: Give appropriate and effective antibiotics [… read more]
U.S. FDA Advises Against Hetastarch Use in ICU European Agency Recommends Ban It was probably only a matter of time. In the wake of large randomized trials suggesting hydroxyethyl starches (HES or hetastarch) cause kidney injury and death in critically ill patients from sepsis and other causes, and the European Medicines Agency formally suggesting this month [… read more]
“Decolonizing” New ICU Patients Reduces Bloodstream Infections: NEJM This article had an erratum posted in NEJM: read more here. In humankind’s battle against bacteria, the ICU is the front line. And with MRSA infection rates doubling in the past 5 years, and the more recent and scary spread of lethal pan-resistant Enterobacteriae, lately the bugs have [… read more]
By Dr. Philippe Rola I was recently scanning the literature in preparation for our symposium, and came across what should have been a 2003 instead of a 2013 publication in the March issue of the CCM Journal, entitled “Point-of-Care Ultrasound to estimate Central Venous Pressure: A Comparison of Three Techniques.” I have to admit this [… read more]
Staph Vaccine Fails in Cardiothoracic Surgery Patients Staphyloccocus aureus wound infections and bacteremia commonly complicate cardiothoracic surgery, even with meticulous attention to infection prevention. Staph mediastinitis, a deep infection of the surgical wound, is particularly feared and lethal. Vance Fowler et al randomized 8,031 people undergoing sternotomy to receive the V710 vaccine against S. aureus, [… read more]
Killer Carbapenem-Resistant Bacteria Spreading Across U.S. Gut-living bacteria like Klebsiella are gaining resistance to carbapenems at an alarming rate, and long-term acute care hospitals (LTACs) and nursing homes seem to be the incubators for these killer bugs spreading across the U.S. Carbapenems like meropenem and doripenem have been the gold standard to treat infections from [… read more]
“Like this … kind of” Passive Leg Raise Improved Management of Patients in Shock* (*some assembly required) by Blair Westerly, MD Providing the right amount of fluid is vital in a critically ill patient, as both too little and too much can result in poor outcomes. Yet even with this understanding, the clinical assessment of [… read more]
Fecal Transplants Cure C. difficile Infections, When Drugs Can’t Antibiotics are what cause Clostridium difficile infection to emerge in the first place, so it’s perhaps no surprise that the usual treatment — more antibiotics — often fails. From 15-25% of patients with C. difficile are not permanently cured by their initial treatment with metronidazole, and among those [… read more]
Time to Retire Routine Replacement of Peripheral IVs Study question: Do peripheral I.V.s need to be changed every 72-96 hours per the CDCs recommendations or can they be changed as clinically indicated? How many times as a resident did you receive a call at 4 a.m., often at the very moment you were about to [… read more]
Etomidate: Unsafe for Intubation in Patients with Sepsis? by Blair Westerly, MD Etomidate is commonly used for rapid sequence intubation; however, even after one dose, it has been associated with adrenal axis suppression in critically ill patients. Though both adrenal insufficiency and increased mortality in sepsis have been associated with etomidate, the relationship of the [… read more]
Azithromycin for non-CF Bronchiectasis Bronchiectasis — the permanently dilated, tortuous bronchi that can result after previous lung infections — is a frustrating problem for pulmonologists to treat, but not nearly as frustrating as it can be for patients to live with. People with bronchiectasis are plagued by chronic coughing, and many experience a steady decline [… read more]
“We’ve got to get that femoral line out of there!” The attending’s face as he says it shadowed with a simmer of fear, a dash of anger. How could the moonlighter have been so incompetent or lazy as to choose the benighted femoral site for a central venous line when the internal jugular and subclavian [… read more]
It started with a friendly pro/con debate in the December 2011 Chest, about whether lactate clearance or mixed venous oxygen saturation is a better “goal” for early goal-directed therapy in severe sepsis and septic shock. It ended with Alan Jones reviving rumors and innuendo that have swirled around Emanuel Rivers’s 2001 sepsis trial, and by extension his entire body [… read more]
Hydroxyethyl Starch (Voluven) Causes Kidney Failure In Large Trial Hydroxyethyl starch (HES) was already wearing a scarlet letter as an potentially dangerous volume resuscitation agent for patients in shock, after evidence emerged this year that hydroxyethyl starch kills people with severe sepsis. Now, another huge, convincing trial shows that hydroxyethyl starch (Voluven) damages kidneys and [… read more]
(image: Rxhealthdrugs.com) People taking 5 days of azithromycin had a very small absolute increased risk of death, especially due to cardiovascular causes, compared to people taking amoxicillin, in a retrospective cohort review by Wayne Ray, Katherine Murray, and C. Michael Stein published in the May 17 New England Journal of Medicine. Erythromycin and clarithromycin (the other [… read more]
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