Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History

Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History

A veteran ER doctor explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history and present-day research of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for... read more

Plasma Transfusion Shows Promise for COVID-19 Treatment

Plasma Transfusion Shows Promise for COVID-19 Treatment

Donor blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 appears to work as a treatment for the virus, a new analysis has revealed. In this preliminary uncontrolled case series of 5 critically ill patients with... read more

Chinese Frontline Anesthesiologists Share COVID-19 Treatment Experience

Chinese Frontline Anesthesiologists Share COVID-19 Treatment Experience

Anesthesiologists are crucial in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, with their role encompassing anesthesia, intensive care, pain treatment and more. The job is of high risk, with medical staff at risk of getting infected... read more

UC Davis Researchers Race to Develop Coronavirus Solutions

UC Davis Researchers Race to Develop Coronavirus Solutions

Clinical pathologists, infectious disease physicians and scientists at the UC Davis Medical Center, School of Medicine, California National Primate Research Center and Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases are collaborating... read more

How Blood From Coronavirus Survivors Might Save Lives

How Blood From Coronavirus Survivors Might Save Lives

Hospitals in New York City are gearing up to use the blood of people who have recovered from COVID-19 as a possible antidote for the disease. Researchers hope that the century-old approach of infusing patients with the... read more

Impact of Early Neuraminidase Inhibitor Treatment on Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Influenza B-related Pneumonia

Impact of Early Neuraminidase Inhibitor Treatment on Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Influenza B-related Pneumonia

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of early (within 2 days after disease onset) neuraminidase inhibitor (NAI) administration on clinical outcomes in patients with laboratory-confirmed influenza B-related pneumonia... read more

Focus on Clinical Trial Interpretation

Focus on Clinical Trial Interpretation

In a recently published meta-epidemiological study of 604 randomised clinical trials (RCTs) published between 1977 and 2018 from 53 Cochrane systematic reviews in critical care, less than 7% of the RCTs had overall low risk... read more

Is All Oxygen Created The Same?

Is All Oxygen Created The Same?

Oxygen therapy is frequently used in the emergency department for the treatment of hypoxia and respiratory failure and can be delivered in a variety of ways. Conventional oxygen therapy (COT) via nasal cannula is often a... read more

Critical Care Crisis and Some Recommendations During the COVID-19 Epidemic in China

Critical Care Crisis and Some Recommendations During the COVID-19 Epidemic in China

The COVID-19 epidemic has placed a huge burden on the Chinese health care system. This crisis has dramatically affected the delivery of critical care due to a lack of resources, lack of prediction models and of course the... read more

Survivorship Will Be the Defining Challenge of Critical Care in the 21st Century

Survivorship Will Be the Defining Challenge of Critical Care in the 21st Century

Distracted by the high mortality rate of critical illness, we tend to overlook the essential fact that most patients survive the intensive care unit (ICU). Every year, millions of patients are discharged from the ICU... read more

Recognition, Assessment, and Pharmacotherapeutic Treatment of Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome in the ICU

Recognition, Assessment, and Pharmacotherapeutic Treatment of Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome in the ICU

Alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) is a complex neurologic disorder that develops after an acute reduction in or cessation of chronic alcohol consumption that alters neurotransmitter conduction. The incidence of AWS in the... read more

Wide Interest in a Vitamin C Drug Cocktail for Sepsis Despite Lagging Evidence

Critical care medicine specialist Paul Marik, MD, has described himself as a status quo destabilizer, and probably nothing illustrates that designation better than the sepsis treatment known as the Marik protocol. In the... read more

Methylnaltrexone for Treatment of Opioid-induced Constipation in Critically Ill Patients

Methylnaltrexone for Treatment of Opioid-induced Constipation in Critically Ill Patients

No evidence to support the addition of methylnaltrexone to regular laxatives for the treatment of opioid-induced constipation in critically ill patients; however, the confidence interval was wide and a clinically important... read more

It’s Insane to Keep Using Mortality As a Primary Endpoint in Critical Care Trials

It’s Insane to Keep Using Mortality As a Primary Endpoint in Critical Care Trials

Mortality is an important endpoint, so we shouldn't ignore mortality trends entirely. However, the vast majority of these will be spurious. Thus, we should generally not change practice due to them. In the history of critical... read more