Current opinion in critical care
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This review summarizes the approach to and recent developments in the evaluation and treatment of acute right heart failure in the ICU. Right heart failure, defined as failure of the right ventricle to provide sufficient blood flow through the pulmonary circulation at normal central venous pressure, is a common problem caused by a combination of increased right-ventricular afterload and right-ventricular contractile dysfunction. ⋯ Right heart failure causes venous congestion and systemic hypoperfusion. Once right heart failure is identified, the primary goal is to alleviate any reversible cause of excessive load or right-ventricular contractile failure. When the underlying abnormalities cannot be alleviated, trials of diuretic, vasodilator, or inotropic therapy may be required. Invasive monitoring helps guide therapy. Medically refractory right heart failure may potentially be treated with right-ventricular assist devices.
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Curr Opin Crit Care · Oct 2012
ReviewSevere acute respiratory infections in the postpandemic era of H1N1.
Shortly after the advent of severe acute respiratory syndrome and the avian influenza, the emergence of the influenza A(H1N1)2009 pandemic caused significant vibrations to the public health authorities and stressed the health systems worldwide. We sought to investigate whether this experience has altered our knowledge and our current and future practice on the management of severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and community-acquired pneumonia. ⋯ The recent influenza A(H1N1)2009 pandemic has highlighted our weaknesses relating to the diagnosis and assessment of severity of SARI, compromising early treatment and ultimate outcomes; further research based on this experience will help to improve prognosis and boost our future preparedness. An important message is the necessity of international collaboration for the rapid dissemination of locally acquired knowledge.
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This review describes recent findings related to molecular-based methods of potential application in the diagnosis of bacterial hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP)/ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). It focuses on methods capable of providing organism identification and keys of bacterial resistance necessary in clinical and epidemiological management of patients and on their ability to provide quantitative results. ⋯ Despite some limitations, current molecular diagnostic methods have a great potential to include bacterial targets useful in the identification of microorganisms and antimicrobial resistance, to analyze directly unprocessed samples and to obtain quantitative results in bacterial HAP/VAP, an entity of complex microbiological diagnosis due to the features of the pathogens commonly implicated.