Crit Care Resusc
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Clinical Trial
Prospective observational study of levosimendan and weaning of difficult-to-wean ventilator dependent intensive care patients.
To evaluate the role of levosimendan in improving cardiac performance and the success rate of weaning from mechanical ventilation in ventilatordependent, difficult-to-wean patients with impaired cardiac function in the intensive care unit. ⋯ Levosimendan may provide significant benefit to ventilator-dependent patients with impaired left ventricular function. Randomised controlled trials appear justified.
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To improve the precision of currently available models for predicting length of stay of individual patients in the intensive care unit, to assist in directing patients into fast-track management after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. ⋯ Although the optimal model greatly increases precision, it is still inadequate for scheduling fasttrack patients, where wrong predictions for individuals can cause major problems in resource allocation.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Evaluation of a continuous glucose monitor in an unselected general intensive care population.
To assess the accuracy of the Guardian REALTime continuous glucose monitoring system (Medtronic MiniMed, Northridge, Calif, USA) in critically ill adults compared with standard bedside point-of-care testing of capillary and arterial blood glucose levels. ⋯ The Guardian REAL-Time continuous glucose monitoring system cannot replace current methods of blood glucose measurement at a glucose threshold of +/-1mmol/L. It may have role as an early warning detection system for hypo- or hyperglycaemia, but this needs to be evaluated in a prospective study of extremes of blood glucose levels in a critically ill population. Glucose measurements in arterial and capillary blood samples with a point-of-care glucometer also showed wide discrepancies.
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Multicenter Study
Renal replacement therapy for acute kidney injury in Australian and New Zealand intensive care units: a practice survey.
There are few published data on the practice of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in Australian and New Zealand intensive care units. These data are essential for designing trials to compare new treatment approaches with "standard care". ⋯ These findings provide insight into RRT practice in ICUs in Australia and New Zealand, as well as useful data to assess whether the control group in the RENAL trial receives "standard" therapy as delivered in Australian and New Zealand trial centres at the time.