Journal of critical care
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Journal of critical care · Dec 2012
The effects of hemodialysis on blood glutamate levels in chronic renal failure: implementation for neuroprotection.
The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether hemodialysis (HD) is effective in lowering blood glutamate levels. In addition, we examined the effect of HD on glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) and glutamate pyruvate transaminase (GPT) levels in the blood and described the rate and pattern of blood glutamate clearance during HD. ⋯ Hemodialysis may be a promising method of reducing blood glutamate levels.
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Journal of critical care · Dec 2012
Mechanical ventilation in the emergency department for 24 hours or longer is associated with delayed weaning.
We examined various aspects of critical care to identify factors in the emergency department (ED) that affected the overall duration of mechanical ventilation (MV). We specifically focused on whether 24 hours of ED MV affected the weaning success and the duration of MV. ⋯ Mechanical ventilation in the ED for 24 hours or longer is associated with delayed ventilator weaning.
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Journal of critical care · Dec 2012
The impact of body mass index on the physiology of patients with polytrauma.
Obesity is a growing problem in industrial nations. The aim was to test the hypothesis that overweight patients face early physiologic impairment. ⋯ Anticipating BMI-specific critical trauma problems will become mandatory for effective polytrauma treatment in industrialized nations given their increasing prevalence of obesity.
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Journal of critical care · Dec 2012
Comparative StudyBias reduction in repeated-measures observational studies by the use of propensity score: the case of enteral sedation for critically ill patients.
Within the evidence-based medicine paradigm, randomized controlled trials represent the "gold standard" to produce reliable evidence. Indeed, planning and implementing randomized controlled trials in critical care medicine presents limitations because of intrinsic and structural problems. As a consequence, observational studies still occur frequently. In these cases, propensity score (PS) (probability of receiving a treatment conditional on observed covariates) is an increasingly used technique to adjust the results. Few studies addressed the specific issue of a PS correction of repeated-measures designs. ⋯ Propensity score represents a useful additional tool to estimate the effects of treatments in nonrandomized studies. In the case study, an enteral sedation approach was equally effective to an intravenous regime, allowing for a lower level of sedation and spare of resources.
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Journal of critical care · Dec 2012
Assessing the national productivity in subspecialty critical care medicine journals: a bibliometric analysis.
In recent years, significant growth has been seen in the subspecialty critical care medicine. However, the national productivity to the subspecialty critical care medicine remains unknown. We therefore intended to reveal the national contribution in the subspecialty critical care medicine journals. ⋯ The United States is the most productive country in the subspecialty critical care medicine. When normalized to population size, Australia and some European countries might be more productive.