Seminars in respiratory and critical care medicine
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Feb 2022
Infections Due to Acinetobacter baumannii-calcoaceticus Complex: Escalation of Antimicrobial Resistance and Evolving Treatment Options.
Bacteria within the genus Acinetobacter (principally A. baumannii-calcoaceticus complex [ABC]) are gram-negative coccobacilli that most often cause infections in nosocomial settings. Community-acquired infections are rare, but may occur in patients with comorbidities, advanced age, diabetes mellitus, chronic lung or renal disease, malignancy, or impaired immunity. Most common sites of infections include blood stream, skin/soft-tissue/surgical wounds, ventilator-associated pneumonia, orthopaedic or neurosurgical procedures, and urinary tract. ⋯ Strategies to curtail environmental colonization with MDR-ABC require aggressive infection-control efforts and cohorting of infected patients. Thoughtful antibiotic strategies are essential to limit the spread of MDR-ABC. Optimal therapy will likely require combination antimicrobial therapy with existing antibiotics as well as development of novel antibiotic classes.
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Feb 2022
Sepsis and Septic Shock: Evolving Evidence, Evolving Paradigms.
Sepsis and septic shock represent important infection-related medical emergencies that result in significant morbidity and mortality. The prevalence and microbiology of these processes are evolving. Nonetheless, timely and appropriate antibiotic therapy continues to represent the most important determinant of survival. ⋯ While some newer alternative vasopressors may have a role in sepsis, more evidence supporting their use is required. Conflicting data exist regarding the impact of corticosteroids on mortality in septic shock. However, these reports indicate that adjunctive hydrocortisone can lead to more rapid shock reversal.
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It is well established that Intensive Care Units (ICUs) are a focal point in antimicrobial consumption with a major influence on the ecological consequences of antibiotic use. With the high prevalence and mortality of infections in critically ill patients, and the clinical challenges of treating patients with septic shock, the impact of real life clinical decisions made by intensivists becomes more significant. Both under- and over-treatment with unnecessarily broad spectrum antibiotics can lead to detrimental outcomes. ⋯ In this review, we summarize the evidence to help guide antibiotic decision-making in the ICU. We focus on 1) deciding IF: to start antibiotics, 2) choosing the spectrum of the empiric agents to use, and 3) de-escalating the chosen empiric antibiotics. We provide a perspective on the role of machine learning and artificial intelligence models for clinical decision support systems that can be incorporated seamlessly into clinical practice in order to improve the antibiotic selection process and, more importantly, current and future patients' outcomes.
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Severe viral infections may result in severe illnesses capable of causing acute respiratory failure that could progress rapidly to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), related to worse outcomes, especially in individuals with a higher risk of infection, including the elderly and those with comorbidities such as asthma, diabetes mellitus and chronic respiratory or cardiovascular disease. In addition, in cases of severe viral pneumonia, co-infection with bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus is related to worse outcomes. ⋯ Respiratory viruses have been diagnosed as a frequent cause of severe pneumonia, including cases of community-acquired pneumonia, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and ventilator-associated pneumonia. In this review, we will discuss the epidemiology, diagnosis, clinical characteristics, management, and prognosis of patients with severe infections due to respiratory viruses, with a focus on influenza viruses, non-influenza viruses, and coronaviruses.