Tag: infection
Eye Care and Microbial Overgrowth in the ICU
Patients undergoing prolonged mechanical ventilation face silent risks that extend far beyond their lungs, including exposure keratopathy (EK), a condition where the eyes fail to close properly, and opportunistic conjunctival... read more
Navigating Corticosteroid Therapy for Immunocompromised Patients with Severe Pneumonia
For immunocompromised patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with severe community-acquired pneumonia (sCAP), the decision to administer adjunctive corticosteroid therapy is uniquely precarious. While corticosteroids... read more
How nEMR3 Spotlights Early Sepsis and Tracking Survival
This single-center ICU study conducted at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital evaluated neutrophil EMR3 (nEMR3), a biomarker calculated by normalizing a patient's neutrophil EMR3 median fluorescence intensity to healthy controls, as... read more
The Penicillin Paradox: Overcoming Allergy Labels and Barriers to Desensitization in the ICU
While roughly 10% of patients carry a penicillin allergy label, formal testing reveals that over 90% of these labels are completely inaccurate. In ICUs, where severe infections demand urgent, optimal treatment, this mislabeling... read more
Unmasking Candidemia: Three Profiles, Divergent Fates
This multicenter retrospective study investigated the clinical heterogeneity of candidemia in critically ill patients to identify distinct clinical phenotypes and evaluate their 90-day mortality. Analyzing 492 intensive care... read more
Sepsis Management in Resource-limited Settings
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. It constitutes a unique source of knowledge and guidance for all healthcare workers who care for patients with sepsis and septic shock in resource-limited settings. More... read more
Decoding Sepsis: Fast-Tracking Diagnosis with SeptiCyte RAPID
SeptiCyte RAPID is an FDA-cleared gene expression test that measures a patient's immune response to help diagnose sepsis. It provides a "SeptiScore" from 0 to 15, divided into four bands that indicate the likelihood of sepsis... read more
ICU Quick Drug Guide 2nd Edition
This book provides precise, must-have drug information for the ICU. It offers essential, evidence-based practice guidelines for the critical care setting. Now in its fully revised and expanded second edition, ICU Quick Drug... read more
Automated Airway Care: The MICROINHALO Trial on Cuff Pressure and VAP Prevention
The MICROINHALO trial, an international cluster-randomized study across 10 ICUs, investigated whether automated airway management could reduce bacterial tracheal colonization in 250 critically ill intubated patients. The... read more
Blood, Sweat, and the ICU: Conquering Emergencies in Hematological Malignancies
Breakthroughs in cancer therapies and supportive care have dramatically improved life expectancy for patients with hematological malignancies (HM). However, living longer means more patients are surviving long enough to encounter... read more
COVID-19 in the Air: The Hidden Viral Footprint in Hospital Waiting Rooms
New research from the Kirby Institute reveals that COVID-19 genetic material is frequently present in hospital air during community outbreaks, even in facilities with high-quality ventilation. By sampling air and surfaces... read more
Severe Trauma and Sepsis: Organ Damage and Tissue Repair
This book discusses recent progress in organ damage and tissue repair following severe trauma and sepsis. In part 1, it introduces the theory and clinical practice in organ damage. In part 2, it covers all the subjects... read more
Sepsis Management: PIRO and MODS
This book is unique in approaching multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) from the perspective of its pathophysiological mechanism, and addressing aspects that are overlooked in most of the available literature. Eminent... read more
Urinary Source Saves Lives: Why Infection Origin Matters in Septic Shock for Patients Over 90
In critically ill nonagenarians and centenarians admitted to ICUs with septic shock, the source of infection emerges as a key independent predictor of long-term survival, varying over time. Patients with septic shock from... read more
Protocol Power: Code Sepsis Boosts Bundle Compliance and Cuts Hospital Stays
Study Design: This was a retrospective, single-center study comparing patients with severe sepsis or septic shock before (Pre-Code Sepsis, PC) and after (After-Code Sepsis, AC) the implementation of a structured, team-based... read more
Reducing Mortality in Critically Ill Patients
This book describes the techniques, strategies, and drugs that have been demonstrated by multicenter randomized trials to influence survival in critically ill patients, defined as those who have acute failure of at least... read more
Breadth of Antibiotics Trumps Dose and Duration in Driving ICU Superbugs
In a large prospective cohort study across four ICUs (422 patients enrolled from March 2024 to January 2025), 35.8% of patients acquired carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (CR-GNB) during their stay. Using sophisticated... read more
Superbugs Are Winning – Time to Fight Back with the Four-Pillar Plan
The relentless global surge in multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections, vividly illustrated by high rates of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter in Western Romania and echoed worldwide, is outpacing outdated diagnostic and treatment... read more
Why the 7-Day IV Change Policy Could Cost Lives and Millions
A new economic evaluation of the landmark RSVP trial reveals that adopting 7-day routine IV replacement (deemed “non-inferior” to every-3-day changes based on acute catheter infection rates) may actually be harmful and... read more
Steroids Save Lives in Severe Pneumonia and ARDS – Without Spiking Superbug Risk
A rigorous new systematic review and meta-analysis of 20 high-quality trials (3,459 patients) confirms that low-dose, short-course systemic corticosteroids significantly reduce short-term mortality in both severe pneumonia... read more
ICU Protocols: A Step-wise Approach, Vol I
The second edition of this highly successful book includes up-to-date notes on the step-wise management of clinical emergencies encountered in everyday intensive care units (ICU). Each thoroughly revised chapter provides... read more
Lungs Hit Hardest: Respiratory Sepsis Survivors Face Sharply Higher Death Rates and Cognitive Decline Years Later
In a large cohort study of 12,854 ICU survivors in Germany, patients who survived respiratory sepsis (RS) – mostly from bacterial pneumonia – had significantly worse long-term outcomes than those who survived SARS-CoV-2... read more
