The fewer patients an ICU nurse has to juggle, the better those patients’ chances of making it out of the hospital alive, according to a large observational study published in Critical Care Medicine. Data from the large EPIC II study suggested that two patients per nurse may be too many for safe, high-quality critical care. Nurse-to-patient [… read more]
Thoracentesis for pleural effusion — that is, inserting a long needle between someone’s ribs to drain a fluid collection from the chest — has always come with a scary menu of potential risks, including pneumothorax, hemothorax and pulmonary edema. A new study reports a low complication rate from thousands of thoracenteses. But debate will remain whether the safety results — achieved [… read more]
Image: Airwaycam Endotracheal intubation is a routine but high-stakes maneuver, performed uneventfully thousands of times daily throughout the developed world. In the U.S., elective (routine) intubation is almost exclusively the domain of anesthesiologists, who become masters of the technique through thousands of iterations throughout training and their careers. The vast majority of these intubations take [… read more]
Subglottic suctioning can prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), but much of the research showing its benefits was performed prior to wide adoption of the so-called “VAP bundle,” widely believed to reduce VAP incidence. This led some to question any additive benefits of subglottic suctioning. Authors of a new randomized trial found that subglottic suctioning also reduced ventilator-associated pneumonia incidence in a [… read more]
Stroke Volume Variation and the Concept of Dose-Response Jon-Emile S. Kenny M.D. Awareness of the undulating pattern of an arterial line tracing is high amongst health professionals in the intensive care unit; certainly this is an aftereffect of a cacophony of studies and reviews pertaining to pulse pressure variation and fluid responsiveness in the operating [… read more]
Feeding patients enterally (nasogastric or nasojejunal tube feedings) has been the standard of care for critically ill patients, based on weak evidence that it reduces infection rates; hence the adage “feed the gut, if you can.” That last caveat is included because so many critically ill patients have gastric motility impairment (with inability to achieve [… read more]
ICU Physiology in 1,000 Words “The Hemodynamics of Prone” by Jon-Emile S. Kenny MD A physiological maelstrom has recently swirled about the hemodynamic effects of the prone position in severe ARDS [1-5]; but how exactly does this maneuver alter the cardiovascular system? A good approach to this problem is a Guytonian one whereby we consider [… read more]
Have you heard of ventilator-associated events (VAEs)? Like it or not, this neologism of healthcare-speak is coming to an ICU near you soon. Here’s the lowdown on VAEs and why they matter to the practicing intensivist. What are Ventilator-Associated Events? Ventilator-associated events are an invention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), created in [… read more]
Image: Rotoprone Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) injures the lungs in a heterogeneous pattern, and the damaged areas are particularly vulnerable to further ventilator-induced lung injury. This is why a lung-protective ventilator strategy using low tidal volumes reduces mortality from ARDS, experts believe. Tidal volumes of 6 mL/kg ideal body weight (calculated from height) using conventional [… read more]
Nutritional Support During Critical Illness This PulmCCM topic review will be periodically updated and expanded as new research is published. Originally published September 22, 2013. Most recent update: January 24, 2019. During critical illness, catabolism (breakdown of muscle protein, fat and other complex molecules) occurs faster than anabolism (synthesis of these same macromolecules). Historically, the [… read more]
Source: criticalecho.com Diaphragmatic Ultrasonography to Assess Readiness for Extubation By Muhammad Adrish, MD Weaning a patient from mechanical ventilation is a challenge that intensivists face routinely. Clinical examination and objective measurements like minute ventilation, respiratory rate, maximal inspiratory pressure, and ratio of respiratory rate to tidal volume have all been used with varying reported sensitivity [… read more]
Image: 1800petmeds Systemic steroids in COPD exacerbations requiring ventilator support: Are we treating our patients, or ourselves? By Muhammad Adrish, MD Acute exacerbations of COPD are a major cause of hospitalizations, and are associated with more rapid decline in lung function and reduced survival. Because COPD exacerbations are associated with increased inflammatory responses, corticosteroids have [… read more]
PulmCCM Roundup #2 Welcome back to the PulmCCM Roundup, formerly the Critical Care Roundup. Let’s jump right in to issue #2. Browse all the PulmCCM Roundups here. Etomidate for intubation in sepsis: what’s the risk, really? Etomidate has been suspected of causing adrenal insufficiency and potentially death in patients with severe sepsis, when used as an anesthesia-induction agent [… read more]
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]
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