Mental Disorders and Risk of Severe COVID-19 Over the last few months, several risk factors have been identified for severe COVID-19 illness and mortality. These include age, male sex, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Recent evidence from a meta-analysis also demonstrates an increased risk of severe or fatal COVID-19 among patients with a pre-existing mental disorder.  Since then, several studies have found that patients with psychiatric disorders are also ...

Association of Higher vs Lower PEEP on Mortality Mechanical ventilation is a life-saving strategy for critically ill patients. However, it can promote and/or exacerbate lung injury through several mechanisms, including alveolar overdistension and repetitive opening and closing of the alveoli and small airways. Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) has been employed to prevent end-expiratory alveolar collapse and counteract mechanical strain. However, excessive PE...

Editorial September 29, 2021 Vasopressin and Steroids as Adjunctive Treatment for In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Jason Haukoos, Ivor S. Douglas, Comilla Sasson JAMA. Published online September 29, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.15460 Cardiopulmonary arrest occurs in approximately 290 000 hospitalized patients annually in the United States, representing nearly 1% of all admissions and with survival estimated at 20%.1 To date, most research on cardi...

Medical News & Perspectives October 21, 2021 The Flawed Science of Antibody Testing for SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Jennifer Abbasi JAMA. Published online October 21, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.18919 在新冠肺炎疫情大流行早期，开发商设计了新冠病毒抗体检测，以确定人们是否受到感染。一些专家认为，血液检测最终将有助于解除封锁。一种观点认为，那些带有抗体的人至少在短期内不会发生再次感染，因此他们可以回归社会，而不会使自己或他人置于危险之中。 ...

ditorial October 21, 2021 Glucocorticoid Dose in COVID-19: Lessons for Clinical Trials During a Pandemic Steven A. Webb, Alisa M. Higgins, Colin J. McArthur JAMA. Published online October 21, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.16438 The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic necessitates an urgent need for rapid and yet methodologically rigorous clinical trials to identify the optimal combination of safe and effective treatments as well as rapid identification of c...

#LIVES2021 Begins: Intensive Care is All About the Team ESICM President Maurizio Cecconi, President-Elect Elie Azoulay and Congress Chair Armand Girbes officially opened the LIVES Digital 2021 Congress with a welcome address, an update on ESICM’s activities and initiatives and an overview of the Congress programme.  The COVID-19 crisis has put intensive care medicine at the heart of all concerns within the medical community on a governmental and state level...

Medical News & Perspectives October 21, 2021 The Flawed Science of Antibody Testing for SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Jennifer Abbasi JAMA. Published online October 21, 2021. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.18919 Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, developers designed SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests to detect whether people had been infected. Some experts thought the blood tests eventually would help to ease lockdowns. One idea was that those with antibodies likely would...

Sex, Illness Severity and Mortality in ICU Patients Women account for only about 35-45% of patients in the ICU. This is surprising since half of the world’s population are women. This highlights a very pertinent question: do men and women have equitable access to the ICU? There have been several clinical studies that have tried to determine sex differences in illness severity and survival. However, there have been no consistent results. Some studies show no diff...

Application of Artificial Intelligence in the ICU Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise in critical care. Vast amounts of data are regularly collected in intensive care units, making ICUs the perfect environment for deploying machine-learning techniques. AI in ICUs can have several applications. For example, when determining the short and long-term outcomes of different interventions, a well-designed ICU system could provide significant support in the...

Association of Volume of Sepsis Cases and Mortality Sepsis is a leading cause of death worldwide and is also associated with a high burden of patient mortality.  This burden is expected to increase as populations age. Patients with sepsis typically require high-cost interventions in ICUs. Even with urgent treatment, the probability of death still remains high. However, ICUs that have more experience treating such patients may be associated with lower mortality...