Reslizumab (CINQAIR) is a humanized, anti-IL-5 biologic agent approved by FDA in March 2016 as add-on treatment for asthma with peripheral blood eosinophilia, uncontrolled by usual treatments. In two randomized trials, reslizumab improved lung function and asthma symptoms in patients meeting these criteria. Patients without high eosinophil count in peripheral blood did not experience clinically [… read more]
When is the optimal time to initiate renal-replacement therapy in the ICU? Patients with acute renal failure (a.k.a. acute kidney injury or AKI) in the ICU experience worse outcomes than patients who do not. As the kidneys shut down, toxic electrolytes and metabolic waste products build up in the blood. Intuition says — screams, really [… read more]
Adding azithromycin to usual treatment for asthma exacerbations in adults did not improve asthma symptoms or speed their resolution, investigators reported in the AZALEA randomized clinical trial. Patients getting azithromycin also had no improvement in lung function. Azithromycin is known to have some activity against viruses that infect bronchial cells; viruses are causative or contributory [… read more]
Happy New Year! PulmCCM posts will return soon. In case you missed them, here are some of the top posts of 2016: Review: Lactate & Sepsis Recruitment Maneuvers & PEEP in the Morbidly Obese An Expected or Maladaptive Response to Infection? Sepsis Reconsidered IDSA Guidelines 2016: HAP, VAP & It’s the End of HCAP as [… read more]
GlaxoSmithKline recently got a boost for fluticasone-furoate + vilanterol (Breo Ellipta), its new once-daily COPD maintenance inhaler. Patients with COPD randomized to Breo Ellipta (called Relvar Ellipta in Europe), instead of usual care, had 8% fewer exacerbations and no increased risk for serious adverse events over one year. GSK presented the data at the ERS [… read more]
Every year, over a million people in the U.S. suffer respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation. They experience enormous catabolic stress, extended periods of inactivity, and usually go without their usual caloric intake. It’s no surprise that many are rendered profoundly debilitated by the experience. For many, this weakness and loss of muscle mass represents a second [… read more]
What’s the shelf life of human blood? Like the milk in your fridge, stored donated human blood has an expiration date: currently it’s 42 days, set by the FDA. But is fresher blood actually better? As with ordering wine by the glass, should patients about to be transfused blood ask for “whatever was opened most recently”? There’s [… read more]
Nightly use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) did not prevent cardiovascular events in high risk patients with obstructive sleep apnea, according to a large randomized trial. The SAVE study suggests that CPAP has no cardiovascular benefits for the millions of people using it less than 4 hours a night. However, those using CPAP for more [… read more]
By Jon-Emile S. Kenny [@heart_lung] “I want to be your medicine, I want to feed the sparrow in your heart …” -Kristian Matsson Case A 39 year old woman is admitted to the intensive care unit for hypotension, anuria and altered mentation despite 3 litres of intravenous lactated ringers infusion. She is febrile and found to [… read more]
In patients with COPD with exertional hypoxemia, long-term supplemental oxygen did not improve survival or quality of life in a multicenter randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The NIH-funded study calls into question the current practice of routinely treating moderately hypoxemic COPD patients with supplemental oxygen, and the billions spent for it [… read more]
The idea that augmenting cortisol levels to normal or supranormal levels must be somehow beneficial in septic shock has a compelling basis in physiology and intuition. For physicians, injecting powerful synthetic hormones to restore homeostasis to save a dying patient is a seductive fulfillment of the scientist-savior fantasy. So intensivists were primed to believe the results of [… read more]
Jon-Emile S. Kenny [@heart_lung] “… it is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Macbeth: Act V, Scene V The results of the ATACH II trial are out; we have even more guidance when managing the blood pressure of hypertensive patients with supratentorial, intra-cerebral hemorrhage of less than 60 cm3 [… read more]
Cancers can cause pulmonary embolism, and an unprovoked PE may signal an undiscovered cancer lurking in the body. In older studies, as many as 1 in 10 patients with unprovoked PE were diagnosed with cancer within a year. (The current terminology is that a PE is provoked if associated with a known cancer or another provoking factor, but [… read more]
Not long ago, doctors were taught that 6 months of anticoagulation was plenty for patients with unprovoked pulmonary embolism. That standard was never based on long-term outcomes studies. And as longer-range data started to come in — gulp — it was clear that large numbers of people treated with 6-month warfarin courses after unprovoked PE [… read more]
Direct thrombin inhibitors (DTIs) are anticoagulants (blood thinners) most often used as alternatives to heparin and warfarin. DTIs are approved by the FDA for prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolism (deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) and to prevent blood clots in people with atrial fibrillation. But multiple randomized trials suggest these widely used anticoagulants might cause heart [… read more]
Everyone agrees that providing adequate nutrition in critical illness is vitally important. The problem is, no one knows for sure what “adequate” means. Caloric targets are not based on evidence from randomized trials with meaningful clinical outcomes. They emerge as consensus from educated guesses by researchers conducting physiology studies. One camp believes that extra calories should [… read more]
Noninvasive ventilation (NIV), often referred to by the trade name “BiPAP®,” can prevent intubation and save lives in patients with COPD exacerbations or pulmonary edema due to heart failure. Its proven benefits and low risk have led to NIV being used for patients in respiratory failure in virtually every acute care setting in the developed [… read more]
There’s always been doubt about the efficacy of the numerous “ventilator bundles” hospitals use to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). A provocative new analysis concludes that none of these methods save lives — except the one that almost no ICUs are using today. Healthcare associated pneumonias (HAP), especially ventilator-associated pneumonias (VAP), are associated with increased mortality, excess antibiotic use, lengthened hospital [… read more]
Is it time for a change in the standard treatment of community-acquired pneumonia? A new Dutch study says, maybe. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) says, not so fast. IDSA’s guidelines for treatment of community acquired pneumonia were last updated in 2007. For patients admitted to the hospital but not needing the ICU, they have [… read more]
Endovascular Therapy Improves Outcomes from Ischemic Stroke By Parth Rali, MD and Igor Titoff, DO Endovascular therapy for ischemic stroke has long been an attractive treatment modality for ischemic strokes, but until recently large randomized trials have not confirmed a benefit [1,2,3]. Two of these—IMS III1 and SYNTHESIS2—failed to prove the benefit of endovascular therapy (with-or-without tissue plasminogen activator) [… read more]
Get PulmCCM’s Weekly Email Update
Stay up-to-date in pulmonary and critical care. No spam.