Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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There are limited long-term follow-up data on functional changes in the myocardium after high-voltage electrical injury (HVEI). ⋯ The long-term contractile performance of the myocardium is preserved when patient do not experience left ventricular dysfunction in the early stages after HVEI.
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Editorial Comment
A week seems to be weak: tailoring duration of antibiotic treatment in Gram-negative ventilator-associated pneumonia.
The optimal length of antimicrobial therapy has not been extensively studied for a great majority of infections and, in critically ill patients affected by ventilator-associated pneumonia, is a persisting and unsolved issue confronting clinicians. The integration of biomarkers, clinical judgment, and microbiologic eradication might help to define a shorter duration for some ventilator-associated pneumonia episodes due to non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli, but until these strategies are implemented in clinical practice for individualizing antibiotic treatment, a short-course duration does not seem to tailor a long benefit.
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Women are generally under-represented in many academic medical settings. Through a brief commentary on this issue, the present article discusses possible explanations for this under-representation as well as potential solutions. Issues examined include women in leadership positions, attrition out of academic medicine, salary imbalance between men and women, potential bias among both genders, and the need for cultural change. We believe this is an extremely important issue of which we all need to be aware and hope that articles such as this will aid in starting a crucial conversation about gender issues in academic medicine.
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The observational literature suggests that hypernatremia is associated with worse outcomes in patients with traumatic brain injury. In a previous issue of Critical Care, Wells and colleagues add to this literature by failing to show an association between hypernatremia and reduced intracranial pressure. However, we must bear in mind many limitations of observational methods before eliminating hyperosmolar therapy from our armamentarium.
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Editorial Comment
Oral care and pulmonary infection - the importance of plaque scoring.
Improving the quality of oral hygiene is recognised as an important counter measure for reducing the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia amongst critically ill patients. Toothbrushing physically disrupts the dental plaque that acts as a reservoir for pulmonary infection and therefore has the potential to reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia. ⋯ The diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia is prone to bias and future studies of oral care interventions should focus on measures of oral cleanliness such as plaque and gingival scores. Once the optimal strategy for oral hygiene is defined in the critically ill, larger studies focussing on ventilator-associated pneumonia or mortality can be conducted.