Internal and emergency medicine
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Pneumonia is an important cause of mortality in intensive care units. The incidence of pneumonia in such patients ranges between 7 and 40%, and the crude mortality from ventilator associated pneumonia may exceed 50%. Although not all deaths in patients with this form of pneumonia are directly attributable to pneumonia, it has been shown to contribute to mortality in intensive care units independently of other factors that are also strongly associated with such deaths. ⋯ A combination of topical and systemic prophylactic antibiotics reduces respiratory tract infections and overall mortality in adult patients receiving intensive care. A treatment based on the use of topical prophylaxis alone reduces respiratory infections, but not mortality. The risk of occurrence of resistance as a negative consequence of antibiotic use was appropriately explored only in the most recent trial by de Jonge, which did not show any such effect.
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Comparative Study
A comparison between the efficacy of lectures given by emergency and non-emergency physicians in an international emergency medicine educational intervention.
The Tuscan Emergency Medicine Initiative is an international collaboration designed to create a sustainable emergency medicine training and qualification process in Tuscany, Italy. Part of the program involves training all emergency physicians currently practicing in the region. This qualification process includes didactic lectures, clinical rotations and practical workshops for those with significant emergency department experience. Lectures in the didactic portion were given by both emergency medicine (EM) and non-EM faculty. We hypothesized that faculty who worked clinically in EM would give more effective lectures than non-EM faculty. ⋯ When teaching EM, evaluations of lectures in this training intervention were higher for lectures given by EM faculty than by non-EM faculty.
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a highly prevalent syndrome, deeply affecting the cardiovascular system as well as the lungs. We investigated the prognostic role of the QT interval and QT dispersion (QTD) in predicting all-cause, respiratory and cardiovascular mortality in COPD, and the relationship between these electrocardiographic parameters and pulmonary function in a prospective longitudinal study. ⋯ Maximal QT interval, QTD and QTcD are independent predictors of mortality. A significant incidence of cardiac sudden death was observed. These findings suggest the need for a global and multidisciplinary risk assessment in COPD patients. Intriguing relationships between the QTD and functional respiratory parameters were also observed.
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An increasing number of elderly patients are admitted to the hospital for critical diseases and the gap between supply and demand of intensive care resources is a growing problem. To meet this challenge, 4 beds in a 24-bed acute care for the elderly (ACE) medical unit were dedicated to a subintensive care unit (SICU). Severely ill elderly medical patients, requiring a higher level of care than provided in ordinary wards, are admitted. The aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the setting and to discuss its usefulness based on data obtained after the first period of implementation. ⋯ The SICU is an innovative method to treat frail elderly patients with more severe conditions. Low hospital mortality compared with that of severe patients in the ACE unit supports the usefulness of this model. It could be implemented in medical units of large hospitals in order to give optimal care and advanced interventions to the frail elderly and to avoid intensive care unit overcrowding.
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Review Comparative Study
The management of patients who require temporary reversal of vitamin K antagonists for surgery: a practical guide for clinicians.
The management of patients who require temporary interruption of vitamin K antagonists is a common clinical problem, affecting an estimated 400 000 patients per year in Europe and North America. Managing such patients is challenging because of the lack of randomized trials assessing different perioperative anticoagulation management strategies and inconsistent recommendations from consensus groups. Recent non-randomized trials have helped to estimate the risks for arterial thromboembolism and bleeding with bridging anticoagulation involving low-molecular-weight heparin. The objectives of this review are to describe bridging anticoagulation and how it may be used with a short-acting heparin, such as unfractionated heparin or low-molecular-weight heparin, to discuss preoperative patient management, focusing on risk stratification for thromboembolic events and interruption of vitamin K antagonist therapy, and to discuss postoperative patient management, focusing on surgery-related bleeding risk and the resumption of bridging anticoagulation and vitamin K antagonist therapy.