Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jan 2016
ReviewPitfalls in haemodynamic monitoring in the postoperative and critical care setting.
Haemodynamic monitoring is a vital part of daily practice in anaesthesia and intensive care. Although there is evidence to suggest that goal-directed therapy may improve outcomes in the perioperative period, which haemodynamic targets we should aim at to optimise patient outcomes remain elusive and controversial. This review highlights the pitfalls in commonly used haemodynamic targets, including arterial blood pressure, central venous pressure, cardiac output, central venous oxygen saturation and dynamic haemodynamic indices. ⋯ Many dynamic haemodynamic indices have been reported to predict fluid responsiveness, but they all have their own limitations. There is also insufficient evidence to support that giving fluid until the patient is no longer fluid responsive can improve patient-centred outcomes. With the exception in the context of preventing contrast-induced nephropathy, large randomised controlled studies suggest that excessive fluid treatment may prolong duration of mechanical ventilation without preventing acute kidney injury in the critically ill.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jan 2016
Intravenous fluid bolus therapy: a bi-national survey of critical care nurses' self-reported practice.
Knowledge of critical care nurses' intravenous fluid bolus therapy (FBT) practice remains underexplored. Using a multi-choice online survey conducted between September and October 2014, we sought to describe the self-reported practice of critical care nurses located in Australia and New Zealand. Two hundred and ninety-five critical care nurses responded to the survey with most practising in adult ICUs. ⋯ Overall, 0.9% saline remains the most common solution for FBT, but there are significant national differences in the preference for albumin and Plasma-Lyte. A volume of 250 ml defines a fluid bolus, with a range from 100 ml to >1000 ml, and speed of delivery from stat to 60 minutes. Most nurses expect substantial physiological effects with FBT.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jan 2016
Comparative Study Observational StudyDay 3 versus Day 1 disseminated intravascular coagulation score among sepsis patients: a prospective observational study.
The role of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) has not been extensively studied in patients with sepsis. A prospective study was performed in a single university hospital. The incidences of DIC at day 1 (<24 hours post-sepsis diagnosis) and day 3 (48 to 72 hours) were investigated among patients with sepsis. ⋯ However, DIC scores did not give additional discriminative power to the existing prognostic scores in predicting mortality of patients with sepsis. In conclusion, the change in DIC score was significantly associated with hospital mortality. Patients with pneumonia sepsis had a lower incidence of DIC on day 1, despite their higher disease severity and mortality rate, compared to those with other sources of sepsis.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jan 2016
Procedural pain does not raise plasma levels of cortisol or catecholamines in adult intensive care patients after cardiac surgery.
The gold standard for quantification of pain is a person's self-report. However, we need objective parameters for pain measurement when intensive care patients, for example, are not able to report pain themselves. An increase in pain is currently thought to coincide with an increase in stress hormones. ⋯ There was no statistically significant association between numeric rating scale scores and change in cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline plasma levels during the procedure. Despite current convictions that pain coincides with an increase in stress hormones, procedural pain was not associated with a significant increase in plasma stress hormone levels in patients who had undergone cardiac surgery. Thus, plasma levels of cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline seem unsuitable for further research on the measurement of procedural pain.