Image: Dartmouth Nitric Oxide: No Benefit Even in Severe ARDS Giving inhaled nitric oxide to people with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) improves oxygenation, but has never been demonstrated to improve survival. Not many physicians seem to use nitric oxide for ARDS anymore, except possibly as salvage therapy in life-threatening refractory disease. Even that well-meaning [… read more]
Pain, agitation, and delirium are all extremely common in ICU patients–so much so that they’ve been termed the “ICU triad.” No one knows exactly how common each is, because ICU patients are often too delirious to complain of pain; or their agitation hides their delirium; or their unidentified pain may cause their agitation; or …. [… read more]
People who survive critical illness often experience long-term cognitive impairment, even among those with normal or near-normal pre-hospital brain function. Cognitive impairment after critical illness is poorly understood; relatively few prospective clinical trials in critical care have followed patients after hospital discharge, and measuring cognitive impairment and determining its onset is difficult. Cognitive impairment reduces [… read more]
Prevention and Management of Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury See also Part 1: Mechanisms of Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury The recognition that lifesaving mechanical ventilation can also be harmful, even lethal, has led to a sea change in the use of mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients — at least in theory. For people with acute respiratory distress [… read more]
Mechanisms of Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury (Part 1) See also Part 2: Prevention and Management of Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury Although invasive mechanical ventilation saves tens of thousands of lives each year, it can also be harmful, causing or worsening acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) when misapplied. The repetitive stretching of lung tissue during positive pressure ventilation [… read more]
Statins have anti-inflammatory and immune-modulating effects, and among critically ill patients, continuing or starting statins have improved soft outcomes in observational and small randomized studies. For example, starting a statin reduced progression of sepsis in ward patients and statins improved organ failure scores in acute lung injury (the HARP trial). But in their first shot at [… read more]
ICU-related Dysphagia and Swallowing Disorders More than 700,000 people develop respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation each year in the U.S. alone, and those that survive are at elevated risk for developing swallowing dysfunction. The aspiration syndromes that follow can be devastating, especially if not recognized and addressed early. Denver’s Madison Macht et al provide a clinical [… read more]
24/7 Intensivist Coverage Does Not Improve Outcomes: Meta-Analysis The debate over whether ICUs should be staffed around the clock by intensivist physicians has simmered for more than 20 years, with opinions on both sides driven more by values and personal biases than evidence. Recent studies have confirmed the benefit of daytime intensivists in ICUs but failed [… read more]
Mechanical Ventilation in ARDS Due to Sepsis See all PulmCCM reviews of: Surviving Sepsis Guidelines Sepsis is one of the main causes of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), in which the lungs are injured by circulating inflammatory mediators, resulting in severely impaired gas exchange usually requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. ARDS also results in poor lung [… read more]
Intubation Checklists in the ICU and ED Can They Save Lives? Endotracheal intubation in the ICU or emergency department is often challenging, to understate by a lot. Intubations outside the operating room are often emergent rush jobs on crashing, hypotensive, severely hypoxemic patients, or people with who have just self-extubated. Pulmonologists’ and emergency physicians’ familiarity [… read more]
Low Tidal Volume Ventilation Improves Outcomes in Elective Surgery Using low tidal volumes (6-8 mL/kg ideal body weight, or about 500 mL in the average man) during mechanical ventilation has been known for more than a decade to be lifesaving for people with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Since reducing mortality by a relative 22% [… read more]
Biomarkers Predict COPD Exacerbations (Sort Of) In addition to daily breathlessness, people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often experience exacerbations of shortness of breath and coughing. Those with more severe COPD tend to have more frequent and severe exacerbations, lower enjoyment of life, and more rapid loss of lung function. The strongest predictor of [… read more]
Early Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) Didn’t Save Lives Under the high stress of critical illness, people lose fat and muscle quickly. Obesity appears to be protective during critical illness, possibly because those extra fat reserves come in handy during this period of accelerated catabolism. The strong physiological rationale and the psychological pressure not to appear to be [… read more]
Prone Positioning Saves Lives in Severe ARDS Patients: NEJM It’s long been known that positioning patients with ARDS on mechanical ventilation face-down (prone) improves their oxygenation. (There are various theories why prone positioning helps, such as by reducing ARDS’s injurious heterogeneous alveolar overdistension.) The improved oxygen levels have never translated into improved outcomes in ARDS [… read more]
No Benefit Seen From Monitoring Gastric Volume in Ventilated Patients on Tube Feedings Early enteral nutrition for patients on mechanical ventilation is considered the standard of care. It’s been assumed that delayed gastric emptying, resulting in a stomach full of liquid nutrition, predisposes patients to have aspiration events and develop ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP). Therefore, [… 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]
image: wikimedia Pulse Oximetry: The 30-Second Time Machine Why does it seem to take so long to re-oxygenate your crashing patient? Because your pulse oximeter is lying to you, no matter how good it is. Telescopes show us how a star looked millions or billions of years ago; pulse oximeters create a similar, though tiny [… read more]
In ARDS, Obesity May Protect Life (But Not Kidneys) by Blair Westerly, MD Obesity is an epidemic and common in intensive care units in the United States. Furthermore, while acute kidney injury (AKI) is also common in critically ill patients, obese patients carry additional risk for AKI because of increased baseline comorbidities. Both obesity and [… 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]
(image: Wikipedia) High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation (HFOV) for ARDS Two Randomized Trials: Early HFOV Doesn’t Help, May Harm High-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) has been proposed as a first-line therapy for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). By delivering 3-15 breaths per second of tiny tidal volumes (~70 mL), HFOV has appeal as the “ultimate” lung protective ventilator [… read more]
Get PulmCCM’s Weekly Email Update
Stay up-to-date in pulmonary and critical care. No spam.