Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Intracranial vascular complications are an important complication of acute bacterial meningitis. Ischemic stroke in meningitis is reported as a result of vasculitis, vasospasm, endocarditis or intraarterial thrombosis. The aim of the study was to identify the value of measuring cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFv) on transracranial doppler (TCD) in the identification of patients at risk for meningitis-associated stroke. ⋯ In summary, TCD was found to be a valuable bedside test to detect arterial alterations in patients with bacterial meningitis. These patients have an increased risk of stroke.
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Computed tomography (CT) is considered the gold standard for quantification of global or regional lung aeration and lung mass. Quantitative CT, however, involves the exposure to ionizing radiation and requires manual image processing. We recently evaluated an extrapolation method which calculates quantitative CT parameters characterizing the entire lung from only 10 reference CT-slices thereby reducing radiation exposure and analysis time. We hypothesized that this extrapolation method could be further validated using CT-data from pigs and sheep, which have a different thoracic anatomy. ⋯ The extrapolation method appears robust against variations in thoracic anatomy, which further supports its accuracy and potential usefulness for clinical and experimental application of quantitative CT.
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Assessment of vasomotor tone is essential in defining appropriate resuscitation strategies for the hypotensive patient. Although changes in mean arterial pressure to cardiac output define arterial resistance, resistance is only one component of vasomotor tone. Compliance is the other component. ⋯ Dynamic Ea is only one component of vasomotor tone, however, and increases in pulse pressure may not be proportional to increases in mean arterial pressure. Also, devices that use the arterial pressure pulse to calculate the stroke volume have an inherent bias that is different amongst devices based on their transfer function algorithms. The use of dynamic Ea for clinical decision-making thus needs to be validated separately for different devices and types of patients.
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Infections in status epilepticus (SE) patients result in severe morbidity making early diagnosis crucial. As SE may lead to inflammatory reaction, the value of acute phase proteins and white blood cells (WBC) for diagnosis of infections during SE may be important. We examined the reliability of C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), and WBC for diagnosis of infections during SE. ⋯ Single levels of CRP and WBC are not reliable for diagnosis of infections during SE, while their linear changes over time significantly correlate with the presence of infections. In addition, low levels of CRP and PCT rule out hospital-acquired infections in SE patients.
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The diagnosis and treatment of dyspnea in the emergency department and in the prehospital setting is a challenge faced by the emergency physician and other prehospital care providers. While the use of lung ultrasound as a diagnostic tool in dyspneic patients has been well researched, there has been limited evaluation of its use in the prehospital setting. In the previous issue of Critical Care, Prosen and colleagues study the accuracy of lung ultrasound compared with both N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide and the clinical examination for differentiating between acute decompensated congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations for patients in the prehospital setting. Their article adds to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the diagnostic efficacy of lung ultrasound in differentiating between these two disease processes in the acutely dyspneic patient.