Critical care medicine
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Critical care medicine · Oct 1992
Historical ArticleCare of the dying: an ethical and historical perspective.
To provide a historical perspective, from ancient Greece to the middle of the 20th century, on ethical issues and principles commonly associated with medical care for the dying in Western civilization. ⋯ Ethical debates regarding appropriate care for the dying are as old as medicine itself. Although beneficent concerns have characterized the medical community in almost every period of history, tensions have repeatedly arisen as diverse religious and philosophical ideologies have produced varying standards to define such beneficence. In the Christian world, the sanctity of life was often extolled as the paramount standard. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, and again in many post-Renaissance philosophies, quality of life considerations assumed equal or greater importance. Modern life-prolonging technologies heighten the debate by allowing these two standards to dramatically conflict, particularly in the critical care setting.
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Critical care medicine · Oct 1992
Comparative StudyFibrinolytic activity in bronchoalveolar lavage of baboons with diffuse alveolar damage: trends in two forms of lung injury.
Alveolar fibrin deposition is prominent in diffuse alveolar damage, the morphologic hallmark of the adult respiratory distress syndrome. To determine if a persistent abnormality of fibrin clearance occurs in the alveolar compartment during evolving diffuse alveolar damage, we characterized abnormalities of fibrin turnover in serial bronchoalveolar lavage specimens from two baboon models: a) diffuse alveolar damage induced by 80% oxygen and bronchoscopic seeding of Pseudomonas aeruginosa; and b) a more fulminant form of diffuse alveolar damage induced by bronchoscopic seeding of Pseudomonas and the infusion of oleic acid. ⋯ These data indicate that while increased procoagulant activity is characteristic of evolving diffuse alveolar damage and favors alveolar fibrin deposition, fibrinolytic activity may be transiently diminished or remain intact during evolving diffuse alveolar damage in baboons.
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The development of a multifactorial coagulopathy after massive transfusion is a well-recognized clinical problem that is almost always accompanied by hypothermia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the isolated effect of alterations of temperature on the integrity of the coagulation cascade. Prothrombin times and partial thromboplastin times were each performed 15 times on samples of pooled normal plasma at the temperatures of 37 degrees C, 34 degrees C, 31 degrees C, and 28 degrees C, as well as 39 degrees C and 41 degrees C. ⋯ The series of enzymatic reactions of the coagulation cascade are strongly inhibited by hypothermia, as demonstrated by the dramatic prolongation of prothrombin time and partial thromboplastin time tests at hypothermic deviations from normal temperature in a situation where factor levels were all known to be normal. Clinicians who deal with critically ill massively transfused hypothermic patients all recognize the inevitable appearance of a coagulopathy that has a multifactorial origin. Unless specifically considered, the contribution of hypothermia to the hemorrhagic diathesis may be overlooked since coagulation testing is performed at 37 degrees C, rather than at the patient's actual in vivo temperature.