Association Between Age and Neurological Outcomes in OHCA There is very little information about the differences in outcomes between young and old patients who receive extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). In this study, researchers aimed to investigate the differences in outcomes between patients aged 75 years and older and patients younger than 75 years. All patients included in the analysis were those w...

Efficacy, Appropriateness of Antibiotic Use in the ICU The frequency of antibiotic-resistant pathogens continues to increase, resulting in higher community-acquired infections and high mortality rates in critically ill patients. In this review, the researchers critically appraise available evidence through a comprehensive literature review to investigate effective empiric antibiotic administration and appropriateness on outcomes of critically ill patients who ar...

COMMENT|ONLINE FIRST High-dose immunoglobulins from convalescent donors for patients hospitalised with COVID-19 Cynthia So-Osman, Sarah J Valk et al Lancet Published:January 27, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00112-X Many initiatives have developed passive immune therapies for COVID-19 patients, including plasma from convalescent donors. Hyperimmune immunoglobulins (hIVIG), extracted from large amounts of COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP), ...

Opinion Can we trust strong recommendations based on low quality evidence? Liang Yao, Gordon H Guyatt, Benjamin Djulbegovic BMJ 2021; 375 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2833 (Published 25 November 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;375:n2833 A necessary requirement for development of trustworthy guidelines is to respect the relation between the quality (certainty) of evidence and strength of recommendations. Strong recommendations are justified when they are based...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 21 - Issue 5, 2021 Mitigating the Risk of Harm During the Transition From Controlled to Assisted Mechanical Ventilation Monitoring the strength of the patient´s breathing effort, titrating the sedation, and selecting the correct mode of ventilation is vital when transitioning from controlled to assisted ventilation. Assessing The Transition From Fully Controlled to Assisted Ventilation One of the key issues with mecha...

COMMENT|ONLINE FIRST The overlooked pandemic of antimicrobial resistance Ramanan Laxminarayan Lancet Published:January 19, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00087-3 As COVID-19 rages on, the pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues in the shadows. The toll taken by AMR on patients and their families is largely invisible but is reflected in prolonged bacterial infections that extend hospital stays and cause needless deaths.1 Moreover...

ICU Management & Practice, Volume 21 - Issue 4, 2021 Should Families Be Allowed To Visit Dying COVID-19 Patients in the ICU? COVID-19 has drastically changed how end-of-life care is practiced in the intensive care unit. Safety concerns for society limits family visitation but is contrary to patient and family-oriented care. This article provides an ethical analysis of the pros and cons of having family members present at the death of a COVID-19 positive ICU...

Insights from the PRoVENT-COVID Study Mortality in patients with COVID-19 is much higher in patients who need invasive ventilation for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). COVID-19 patients with ARDS are a heterogeneous group with diverse evolutions that could be due to different phenotypes and response to care, including invasive ventilation strategies. The Practice of VENTilation in COVID-19 (PRoVENT-COVID) study was conducted to investigate change...

COMMENT|ONLINE FIRST COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near Christopher J L Murray Lancet Published:January 19, 2022 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00100-3 The world is experiencing a huge wave of infection with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Estimates based on Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) models1 suggest that on around Jan 17, 2022 there were 125 million omicron infections a day in the world, which i...

Enriching the Term “Palliative” Palliative care is an important component of the medical course of many patients. This is particularly applicable for patients with cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and heart, respiratory or liver failure. However, the term palliative is used uniformly, whatever the stages of disease evolution or the specific therapeutic avenues that might still be possible. It might be more practical to use more nuanced and discriminating te...