Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jul 2016
Multicenter Study Observational StudyFactors predicting successful discontinuation of continuous renal replacement therapy.
This multicentre, retrospective observational study was conducted from January 2010 to December 2010 to determine the optimal time for discontinuing continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) by evaluating factors predictive of successful discontinuation in patients with acute kidney injury. Analysis was performed for patients after CRRT was discontinued because of renal function recovery. ⋯ In multivariate logistic regression analysis, urine output at discontinuation, creatinine level and CRRT duration were found to be significant variables (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for urine output, 0.814). In conclusion, we found that higher urine output, lower creatinine and shorter CRRT duration were significant factors to predict successful discontinuation of CRRT.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jul 2016
Organ donation after circulatory death in a university teaching hospital.
Although organ transplantation is well established for end-stage organ failure, many patients die on waiting lists due to insufficient donor numbers. Recently, there has been renewed interest in donation after circulatory death (DCD). In a retrospective observational study we reviewed the screening of patients considered for DCD between March 2007 and December 2012 in our hospital. ⋯ The time interval between admission and death was longer for DCD than for the 45 brain dead donors (5 [3-11] versus 2 [2-3] days; P<0.001), and 95 additional patients received organ transplants due to DCD. Introducing a DCD program can increase potential organ donors without reducing brain dead donors. Antemortem investigations appear to be acceptable to relatives when included in the consent process.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jul 2016
Successful introduction of a daily checklist to enhance compliance with accepted standards of care in the medical intensive care unit.
We introduced a simple checklist to act as an aid to memory for our junior medical staff to ensure that every patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) received every appropriate element of a bundle of care every day. The checklist was developed in consultation with our junior doctors and was designed to be completed every morning for every patient by the junior doctor reviewing the patient. The completed checklist was then checked again by the attending intensivist on the main daily ward round to ensure all the appropriate elements of the checklist had been applied to the patient. ⋯ There was a decrease in the incidence of missed elements of the bundle of care the longer the patient stayed in the ICU. Types of missed elements varied with the duration of the ICU stay. We found that the introduction of a simple checklist, developed in collaboration with the junior medical staff who would be using the checklist every day in the ICU, resulted in the detection and correction of missed elements of a bundle of care we had previously introduced in the ICU.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Jul 2016
Comparative StudyComparison of PulsioFlex® uncalibrated pulse contour method and a modified Fick principle with transpulmonary thermodilution measurements in critically ill patients.
Monitoring of cardiac index (CI) by uncalibrated pulse contour (PC) methods has been shown to be inaccurate in critically ill patients. We tested accuracy and trending of a new pulse contour method and a modified Fick method using central venous oxygen saturation. We studied 21 critically ill and mechanically ventilated patients (age 20-86 years) monitored by PC (PulsioFlex®) and transpulmonary thermodilution (TPTD, PiCCO2®) as reference. ⋯ With an exclusion window of 10% of mean cardiac index, trending analysis by polar plots showed an angular bias of 5° (radial LOA±57°) for PC and 16° (radial LOA±51°) for FM. Although PC values at baseline were marginally acceptable, both methods fail to yield clinically acceptable absolute values. Likewise, trending ability is not adequate for both methods to be used in critically ill patients.