Search Tag: diagnosis
2018 25 Sep
How can we predict errors in the emergency department? Clinician judgement is key, said Eric Dryver, speaking at the European Society for Emergency Medicine annual congress, held in Glasgow earlier this month. Dryver, emergency medician physician at Skåne University Hospital in Lund, Sweden, and chair of the EUSEM education committee, said that in...Read more
2018 28 Mar
With all the tests and treatments available in ICUs, it’s good to take a step back and question whether they are necessary, according to presenters at ISICEM 2018. Over-diagnosis Jan de Waele , MD, PhD, Critical Care Physician at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, started by asking if there is over-diagnosis in the ICU, driven by a compulsion...Read more
2018 16 Mar
Describes an episode of sepsis in a leukaemia patient, whose treatment was early guided by using rapid diagnostics technology to identify the cause of infection. A 4-year-old patient under treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, diagnosed 6 months before, was admitted to the emergency room (ER) at midnight (00h33) due to a fever episode...Read more
2018 16 Mar
An overview of the recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of immune system dysfunction in sepsis. Sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection (Singer et al. 2016). Sepsis-induced immune system dysfunction is an important sequelae of sepsis. The persistence of immune system dysfunction...Read more
2017 22 Nov
Implementation of a sepsis code, Código Sepsis, in October 2015 at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona has led to better detection and a significant reduction in mortality. The hospital is the largest in Barcelona, with more than 1,100 beds and 7,000 employees. The objectives of Código Sepsis are to increase suspicion of sepsis and...Read more
2017 03 Jul
Researchers from the University of Illinois and Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, USA, have developed a new portable device, which they say is the first to provide rapid, point-of-care measurement of the immune system's response, without any need to process the blood. You might also like : New Biomarker Improves Early Sepsis Detection...Read more
2016 30 Nov
The intraosseous needle is an essential tool in emergency settings when initial vascular access is difficult to achieve. This paper focuses on possible biochemical analyses on blood from emergency intraosseous needles, suggesting principles of use as well as pointing out advantages and shortcomings. Intraosseous (IO) access has been used...Read more
2016 27 Sep
Ventilator-associated pneumonia is a major complication of mechanical ventilation and represents the most common reason for antibiotic prescription in ventilated patients. Incidence ranges from 1.2 to 8.5 cases per 1000 ventilator days or 9 to 27% cases per mechanically ventilated patient; attributable mortality rates vary between 0% and 70%...Read more
2016 24 Aug
Healthcare providers are the critical link to preventing, recognising, and treating sepsis, say the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in their Vital Signs report on sepsis, which was released on 23 August. Patients and their families should also be alert to sepsis, they add. Sepsis begins outside hospital for 80% of patients,...Read more
2016 30 May
Case Report Using Nonbronchoscopic BAL Use of the HALYARD* Mini-BAL Sampling Catheter proved invaluable in the case of a patient experiencing complications from abdominal surgery. Dr. Roberto Oggioni has been director of the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at S. Giovanni di Dio Hospital since 2012, and wrote up the case with colleague...Read more
2016 04 Apr
When ICU patients experience prolonged seizures, immediate action is required to prevent long-term neurological damage. An article in the April issue of Critical Care Nurse provides diagnosis and treatment guidance for nurses and other clinicians whose patients experience continuous or recurrent seizures, convulsive or non-convulsive. The article...Read more
2016 11 Mar
The updated definitions and clinical criteria for sepsis have been welcomed by Professor Jean-Louis Vincent, ICU Management & Practice’s Editor-in-Chief, who says: “we are finally back to reason – the new recommendations fit the current language.” The new definitions are published in the 23 February issue of JAMA, and aim to facilitate earlier recognition...Read more
2016 11 Mar
This review explores current definitions of frailty, methods available to diagnose it, and its application to perioperative and critically ill patients. Frailty is increasingly recognised as a potential contributor to patient outcome during an episode of critical illness. However, there is currently no consensus definition or assessment tool....Read more
2016 08 Mar
A single centre retrospective study that evaluated the accuracy in high-risk trauma patients of the infection-related ventilator-associated complications (IVAC) algorithm for detecting ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) found that it failed to detect nearly three-quarters of patients with VAP. The study is published in Respiratory Care . Following...Read more
2016 22 Feb
The updated definitions and clinical criteria for sepsis have been welcomed by Professor Jean-Louis Vincent, ICU Management & Practice ’s Editor-in-Chief, who says: “we are finally back to reason – the new recommendations fit the current language.” The new definitions are published in the 23 February issue of JAMA , and aim to facilitate earlier recognition...Read more
2016 15 Feb
A noninvasive, cost-effective and portable sensor could be used to diagnose frailty syndrome in elderly people - the result of PhD research by engineer Nora Millor at the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre in Spain. Millor (pictured) notes that current diagnostic methods, such as the Fried criteria rely on determining the presence of components...Read more
2015 21 Jul
A.S.P.E.N. is a new training series focusing on fluids, electrolytes and acid-base. If you need a better understanding of fluid and electrolyte management and if acid-base frequently puzzles you, then this training series is for you. Learn how to diagnose and treat the various extracellular and intracellular electrolyte disorders in your nutrition support...Read more
2015 04 Jun
Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) has announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided 510(k) clearance for the cobas Cdiff Test to detect Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) in stool specimens. The cobas Cdiff Test targets the toxin B gene found in toxigenic C. difficile strains directly in specimens from symptomatic patients....Read more
2015 13 Mar
According to a new study conducted by researchers at Intermountain Medical Center, using advanced clinical decision support tools can reduce mortality for patients who are treated for pneumonia. The findings have been published in Annals of Emergency Medicine . Approximately 1.1 million patients in the US are treated for pneumonia each year. More...Read more
2014 21 Feb
In a recent study published in the March edition of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, a team of researchers share their findings on the diagnosis and treatment of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). With the aims of quantifying and characterising unjustified antimicrobial use for VAP as well as identifying risk factors associated...Read more