Critical care : the official journal of the Critical Care Forum
-
Gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction is common in the critical care setting and is highly associated with clinical outcomes. Opioids increase the risk for GI dysfunction and are frequently prescribed to reduce pain in critically ill patients. However, the role of opioids in GI function remains uncertain in the ICU. This review aims to describe the effect of opioids on GI motility, their potential risk of increasing infection and the treatment of GI dysmotility with opioid antagonists in the ICU setting.
-
Multicenter Study
Clinical spectrum and risk factors for mortality among seawater and freshwater critically ill drowning patients: a French multicenter study.
Drowning is a global threat and one of the leading causes of injury around the world. The impact of drowning conditions including water salinity on patients' prognosis remains poorly explored in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) patients. ⋯ In this large multicenter cohort, freshwater drowning patients had a poorer prognosis than saltwater drowning patients. Reasons for such discrepancies include differences in underlying psychiatric comorbidity, drowning circumstances and severities. Patients with initial cardiac arrest secondary to drowning remain with a very poor prognosis.
-
Clinical Trial
Fever and hypothermia represent two populations of sepsis patients and are associated with outside temperature.
Fever and hypothermia have been observed in septic patients. Their influence on prognosis is subject to ongoing debates. ⋯ Septic patients show either a hypothermic or a fever response. Whether hypothermia is a maladaptive response, as indicated by the higher mortality in hypothermic patients, or an adaptive response in patients with limited metabolic reserves under colder environmental conditions, remains an open question. Trial registration The original trial whose dataset was analyzed was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01187134) on August 23, 2010, the first patient was included on July 1, 2011.