Bedside Ultrasound Assessment of Lung Reaeration in Patients With Blunt Thoracic Injury Receiving High-Flow Nasal Cannula Oxygen Therapy

Bedside Ultrasound Assessment of Lung Reaeration in Patients With Blunt Thoracic Injury Receiving High-Flow Nasal Cannula Oxygen Therapy

High-flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy may be considered as an initial respiratory therapy for trauma patients with blunt chest injury. High-flow nasal cannula therapy could improve lung aeration as noted by the transthoracic... read more

Cast of the Right Bronchial Tree

Cast of the Right Bronchial Tree

A 36-year-old man was admitted to the intensive care unit with an acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure. His medical history included heart failure with an ejection fraction of 20%, bioprosthetic aortic-valve replacement... read more

Mortality and Morbidity in Acutely Ill Adults Treated with Liberal vs. Conservative Oxygen Therapy

Mortality and Morbidity in Acutely Ill Adults Treated with Liberal vs. Conservative Oxygen Therapy

In acutely ill adults, high-quality evidence shows that liberal oxygen therapy increases mortality without improving other patient-important outcomes. Supplemental oxygen might become unfavourable above an SpO2 range of 94-96%.... read more

Assessment of the adequacy of oxygen delivery

Assessment of the adequacy of oxygen delivery

In this article, we review physiologic principles of global oxygen delivery, and discuss the bedside approach to assessing the adequacy of oxygen delivery in critically ill patients. Although there have been technological... read more

Oxygen Therapy for Acutely Ill Medical Patients

Oxygen Therapy for Acutely Ill Medical Patients

It is a longstanding cultural norm to provide supplemental oxygen to sick patients regardless of their blood oxygen saturation. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis has shown that too much supplemental oxygen increases... read more

Lessons From Everest’s Sherpas Could Aid Intensive Care Treatment

Lessons From Everest’s Sherpas Could Aid Intensive Care Treatment

A research expedition to Mount Everest has shed light on the unique physiological basis of adaptations seen in the native Sherpa people, which make them better suited to life at high altitude. This improved understanding,... read more

High-Flow Nasal Cannula in Critically Ill Subjects With or at Risk for Respiratory Failure

High-Flow Nasal Cannula in Critically Ill Subjects With or at Risk for Respiratory Failure

High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) oxygen delivery has been gaining attention as an alternative means of respiratory support for critically ill patients, with recent studies suggesting equivalent outcomes when compared with other... read more

Oxygen Flow Rate and FiO2: Understand the Relationship!

Oxygen Flow Rate and FiO2: Understand the Relationship!

Oxygen, we all need it! We do not need a lot of it under normal circumstances, with 0.21 being the fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) of room air. FiO2 is defined as the concentration of oxygen that a person inhales. The... read more

Noninvasive Ventilation in Hypercapnic COPD

Noninvasive Ventilation in Hypercapnic COPD

Recently, Murphy and colleagues reported findings from a clinical trial designed to evaluate the effect of home noninvasive ventilation (NIV) with oxygen on time to readmission or death in patients with persistent hypercapnia... read more

Inside the lives of America’s last iron lung patients

Inside the lives of America’s last iron lung patients

Long after the polio vaccine stemmed the disease that once infected thousands of people, a handful of U.S. polio survivors still rely on decades-old iron lung machines to stay alive-and must overcome increasing obstacles... read more

Clinical Review: Paracetamol in fever in critically ill patients

Clinical Review: Paracetamol in fever in critically ill patients

Paracetamol is a synthetic, nonopioid, centrally acting analgesic and antipyretic drug. Its antipyretic effect occurres because it inhibits cyclooxygenase-3 and the prostaglandin synthesis.... read more

Oxygen Therapy in Suspected Acute Myocardial Infarction

Oxygen Therapy in Suspected Acute Myocardial Infarction

Routine use of supplemental oxygen in patients with suspected myocardial infarction who did not have hypoxemia was not found to reduce 1-year all-cause mortality. A total of 6629 patients were enrolled. The median duration... read more

Avoiding Intubation

Avoiding Intubation

Review the basic principles and physiology of Non-Invasive Ventilation and High-Flow Oxygen Systems. Critical Care Summit talk by William Bender, MD, Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Emory University School... read more

Effect of Home Noninvasive Ventilation With Oxygen Therapy vs Oxygen Therapy Alone on Hospital Readmission or Death After an Acute COPD Exacerbation

Effect of Home Noninvasive Ventilation With Oxygen Therapy vs Oxygen Therapy Alone on Hospital Readmission or Death After an Acute COPD Exacerbation

In this randomized clinical trial of 116 patients, the addition of home noninvasive ventilation significantly prolonged time to readmission or death from 1.4 months to 4.3 months. Among patients with persistent hypercapnia... read more

Physiological Effects of Chronic Hypoxia

Physiological Effects of Chronic Hypoxia

This review examines an array of physiological responses to low cellular oxygen tensions and discusses the effect of increasing oxygen tensions, through oxygen conditioning, on such responses.... read more

BTS Guideline for oxygen use in healthcare and emergency settings

BTS Guideline for oxygen use in healthcare and emergency settings

The updated guidance is based on new evidence about how effective prescribing and delivery of emergency oxygen for patients can both improve health and save lives. The 2015 emergency oxygen audit report provides information... read more