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Investigators at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, BC, conducted a retrospective review of all ICU admissions between November 1998 and July 2003, to find all patients who were potential candidates for noninvasive ventilation (NIV) in the context of an exacerbation of COPD or acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema (CPE).
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A growing literature suggests that packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusions are associated with adverse outcomes in a variety of patient populations, but the mechanisms behind the observed effects are not clear.
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For 2 years beginning in February, 2005, every patient admitted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) had blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) measured at the time of admission and (if still in the hospital) 4 days later. A standardized set of clinical and laboratory data was also acquired for each patient, per hospital routine.
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In this Issue: Pioglitazone and heart disease; ARBs manufacturers spend
millions to show the non-inferiority of their products compared to less
expensive, generic ACE inhibitors; some athletes turn to growth hormone
because it is difficult to detect; FDA Actions
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While only a minority of patients with asthma exacerbations require ICU admission, these patients are challenging to manage because they typically have already failed treatment in the outpatient and emergency department (ED) settings.
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Starting 4 months after publication of the ARDS Network's landmark study showing improved outcomes in patients with acute lung injury (ALI) or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) when low-tidal-volume, lung-protective ventilation (LPV) was used, investigators at the University of Pennsylvania prospectively identified 88 patients who met the accepted American-European Consensus Conference definition of ALI-ARDS.
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This study from the department of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis sought to determine the effect on extubation and reintubation rates of implementing a mandatory daily spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) in every qualifying ventilated patient and reporting its results to the physicians managing that patient.
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Despite the large role that vasopressors play in the management of septic shock, an unfortunately common problem associated with high mortality, few data exist to support using one vasopressor regimen over another.
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Casserly and colleagues administered a case-based questionnaire to physician and nursing staffs at 2 large teaching hospitals in Ireland, to determine their knowledge and experience with respect to a common and potentially deadly event in mechanically ventilated patients with fresh tracheostomies: dislodgement of the tube from the airway during vigorous coughing.