Journal of critical care
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Journal of critical care · Jun 2024
ReviewWhat every Intensivist should know about the role of ammonia in liver failure.
Acute liver failure (ALF) or acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) patients have high short-term mortality and morbidity. In the context of liver failure, increased serum ammonia is associated with worse neurological outcomes, including high-grade hepatic encephalopathy (HE), cerebral edema, and intracranial hypertension. Besides its neurotoxicity, hyperammonemia may contribute to immune dysfunction and the risk of infection, a frequent trigger for multi-organ failure in these patients. ⋯ Serum ammonia may have prognostic value in liver failure. Effective ammonia targeted therapeutic strategies are available, such as laxatives, rifaximin, L-ornithine-l-aspartate, and continuous renal replacement therapy.
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Journal of critical care · Jun 2024
Hemodynamic profile of cirrhotic patients with sepsis and septic shock: A propensity score matched case-control study.
Our understanding of hemodynamics in cirrhotic patients with sepsis remains limited. Our study aims to investigate differences in hemodynamic profiles using echocardiography between septic patients with and without cirrhosis. ⋯ Septic patients with cirrhosis had higher LVEF with lower Ea and SVR with higher Ees and significantly lower Ea/Ees suggesting vasodilation as the principal driver of the hyperdynamic profile in cirrhosis.
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Journal of critical care · Jun 2024
Meta AnalysisDifferent ventilation intensities among various categories of patients ventilated for reasons other than ARDS--A pooled analysis of 4 observational studies.
We investigated driving pressure (ΔP) and mechanical power (MP) and associations with clinical outcomes in critically ill patients ventilated for reasons other than ARDS. ⋯ This post hoc analysis was not registered; the individual studies that were merged into the used database were registered at clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01268410 (ERICC), NCT02010073 (LUNG SAFE), NCT01868321 (PRoVENT), and NCT03188770 (PRoVENT-iMiC).
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Journal of critical care · Jun 2024
Malglycemia in the critical care setting. Part III: Temporal patterns, relative potencies, and hospital mortality.
The relationship between critical care mortality and combined impact of malglycemia remains undefined. ⋯ Absolute and relative hypoglycemia occurred largely in the first 24 h. Relative to all hypoglycemia, the associated mortality from the seemingly less potent but consistently more prevalent hyperglycemia steadily accumulated with increasing length-of-stay. This has important implications for interpretation of study results.
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Journal of critical care · Jun 2024
Implementing an ICU registry in Ethiopia-Implications for critical care quality improvement.
Intensive care units (ICUs) in low- and middle-income countries have high mortality rates, and clinical data are needed to guide quality improvement (QI) efforts. This study utilizes data from a validated ICU registry specially developed for resource-limited settings to identify evidence-based QI priorities for ICUs in Ethiopia. ⋯ In this study, ICU mortality was high, and complications were common and associated with increased mortality. ICU registries are invaluable tools to understand local casemix and clinical outcomes, especially in resource-limited settings. These findings provide a foundation for QI efforts and a baseline to evaluate their impact.