Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Recruitment maneuvers (RMs) seem to be more effective in extrapulmonary acute lung injury (ALI), caused mainly by sepsis, than in pulmonary ALI. Nevertheless, the maintenance of adequate volemic status is particularly challenging in sepsis. Since the interaction between volemic status and RMs is not well established, we investigated the effects of RMs on lung and distal organs in the presence of hypovolemia, normovolemia, and hypervolemia in a model of extrapulmonary lung injury induced by sepsis. ⋯ Volemic status should be taken into account during RMs, since in this sepsis-induced ALI model hypervolemia promoted and potentiated lung injury compared to hypo- and normovolemia.
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In this month's issue of Critical Care, Determann and colleagues report the results of a randomized controlled trial comparing the effects of mechanical ventilation (MV) with two tidal volumes (6 versus 10 ml/kg predicted body weight) on cytokine levels in lung lavage fluid and plasma as a surrogate for early identification of acute lung injury (ALI) and/or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The study was stopped early after an interim analysis - when 150 patients were enrolled - showing that the incidence of ALI/ARDS according to the current definition was 10.9% higher in the 10 ml/kg group, although duration of MV and mortality was similar in both groups. We examine these interesting results after providing a brief historical perspective and discuss the limitations and implications of the study.
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Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Effect of histamine-2-receptor antagonists versus sucralfate on stress ulcer prophylaxis in mechanically ventilated patients: a meta-analysis of 10 randomized controlled trials.
We conducted a meta-analysis in order to investigate the effect of histamine-2-receptor antagonists (H2RA) versus sucralfate on stress ulcer prophylaxis in mechanically ventilated patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). ⋯ In patients with mechanical ventilation, H2RA resulted in no differential effectiveness in treating overt bleeding, but had higher rates of gastric colonization and ventilator-associated pneumonia. Additional RCTs of stress ulcer prophylaxis with H2RA and sucralfate are needed to establish the net benefit and risks of adverse effect in mechanically ventilated patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
A multi-center, randomized, double-blind, parallel, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics of intravenous ibuprofen for the treatment of fever in critically ill and non-critically ill adults.
Hospitalized patients are often unable to ingest or tolerate oral antipyretics and recently an aqueous formulation of intravenous (IV) ibuprofen was approved by the US-FDA for the reduction of fever in adults. ⋯ All doses of IV ibuprofen tested reduced fever at four hours and throughout the first 24 hours of dosing. The 400 mg dose was effective in lowering temperature to normal and maintaining this over the first 24 hours of dosing. IV ibuprofen was effective in reducing fevers in critically ill and non-critically ill groups. Following 24 hours of administration of IV ibuprofen, no clinically significant differences in any safety parameter including renal function or bleeding occurred through the 28-day follow-up period.