Revista médica de Chile
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Revista médica de Chile · Jun 1990
[Prolonged hospitalization in the intensive care unit: a worthless effort?].
Hospitalization of a patient in critical care unit for over a month is exceptional and often raises the question of an irreversible disease process. From 2715 consecutive patients admitted to an intensive care unit in the last 4 years we identified 20 patients remaining in the unit for over a month. ⋯ None of the complications developing or the therapeutic procedures used in the first 3 weeks predicted the outcome. In contrast, the presence of respiratory failure, septic shock, requirement of ventilation or parenteral nutrition at day 30 was highly associated with mortality.