Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
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Few antimicrobials are currently active to treat infections caused by extremely resistant Gram-negative bacilli (ERGNB), which represent a serious global public health concern. Tigecycline, which covers the majority of these ERGNB (with the exception of Pseudomonas aeruginosa), is not currently approved for hospital-acquired pneumonia, and several meta-analyses have suggested an increased risk of death in patients receiving this antibiotic. ⋯ De Pascale and colleagues report that the clinical cure rate in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia is significantly higher with a high dose of tigecycline than with the conventional dose, although mortality was unaffected. This high dose is safe; no patients required discontinuation or dose reduction.
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Although early and appropriate antibiotic therapy remains the most important intervention for successful treatment of septic shock, data guiding optimization of beta-lactam prescription in critically ill patients prescribed with continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) are still limited. Being small hydrophilic molecules, beta-lactams are likely to be cleared by CRRT to a significant extent. As a result, additional variability may be introduced to the per se variable antibiotic concentrations in critically ill patients. ⋯ An additional loading dose may be required when CRRT is initiated due to steady-state equilibrium breakage driven by clearance variation. From day 2, dosing must be adjusted to CRRT settings and residual renal function. Therapeutic drug monitoring of beta-lactams may be regarded as a useful tool to daily individualize dosing and to ensure optimal antibiotic exposure.
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Dosing antibiotics in critically ill patients to achieve therapeutic concentrations is a significant challenge. The presence of septic shock and prescription of continuous renal replacement therapy introduces further complexities for the clinician. ⋯ As such, effective antibiotic dosing guidelines for critically ill patients who have septic shock and who receive continuous renal replacement therapy are not available. Dosing flowcharts and therapeutic drug monitoring represent the best available options for clinicians to optimize antibiotic dosing.
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Automatic ventilation for patients with respiratory failure aims at reducing mortality and can minimize the workload of clinical staff, offer standardized continuous care, and ultimately save the overall cost of therapy. We therefore developed a prototype for closed-loop ventilation using acute respiratory distress syndrome network (ARDSNet) protocol, called autoARDSNet. ⋯ We implemented an automatic ventilation therapy using ARDSNet protocol with seven pigs. All positive outcomes were obtained by the closed-loop ventilation therapy, which can offer a continuous standard protocol-driven algorithm to ARDS subjects.