Search Tag: mortality

2019 19 Sep

A clinical examination is usually made by caregivers as a way to detect signs of deterioration in critically ill patients. However, there have been some inconsistencies when it comes to the prognostic value of this exam.   A recent prospective cohort study of 1075 patients assessed whether there was an independent association with the findings from...Read more

2019 30 Aug

The paediatric management of hyperoxaemia (also defined as high PaO 2 or arterial oxygenation of greater or equal to 300mmHg) has so far yielded conflicting results. For multiple studies in adults, hyperoxaemia has been shown as an independent risk factor for mortality after cardiac arrest.   It was the purpose of a recent study to analyse the relationship...Read more

2019 03 Aug

Patients admitted to the ICU have a high mortality rate. Even those who survive the stay tend to suffer from long-term morbidity and reduced quality of life. Critically ill patients frequently present with low blood pressure, oliguria, and skin mottling. These are the signs that usually guide treatment. Most critical care guidelines on the management...Read more

2019 29 May

Patients in the intensive care unit are highly heterogeneous, and include elderly patients who generally have a long history of disease. Prediction of prognosis can often be difficult because of the severity of patient illness and disease history. Severity scores that are based on acute physiology measures are often used in the ICU to predict mortality....Read more

2019 15 May

In high-income countries, ageing patients with chronic comorbidities increase the need for ICU beds. This results in a significant burden for both the individual and the healthcare system. There has been some discussion regarding the benefits of ICU admission for elderly patients as it may lead to unnecessary invasive care and healthcare expenditure...Read more

2018 11 Dec

A group of researchers from France and six other countries assessed the influence of neutropaenia on outcome of critically ill cancer patients by meta-analysis of individual data. Among 7,512 critically ill cancer patients included in this systematic review, neutropaenia was independently associated with poor outcome despite a meaningful survival....Read more

2018 27 Nov

Researchers in Japan conducted a multicentre retrospective observational study to investigate the epidemiology of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in patients with sepsis. They found that patients with DIC diagnosed by two consensus criteria had higher severity and in-hospital mortality than patients without DIC. The study results confirm...Read more

2018 20 Feb

No refunds or returns for advanced disease Without a shift to a personalised breast cancer screening programme, participation rates in mammography screening may further decline. As i said goodbye to another Christmas season and headed to the mall and my local post office to exchange a gift with one that fits or is more apropos to my personal...Read more

2018 23 Jan

Depression is increasingly recognised as a risk factor for adverse outcomes in cardiovascular disease. A new study examining the association of depression with mortality in older adults undergoing aortic valve replacement reports these findings: Patients with evidence of depression at baseline had a higher risk of short-term and midterm mortality,...Read more

2017 24 Oct

In patients undergoing cardiac surgery, the benefit of levosimendan in terms of survival was not shown in multicentre or in high-quality trials; however, levosimendan therapy was associated with reduced mortality in patients with preoperative ventricular systolic dysfunction, according to a new meta-analysis published in the journal Critical Care....Read more

2017 03 Oct

Researchers in Spain have developed a new tool to better assess risk of mortality from heart failure. The simple tool makes use of readily available data to accurately estimate the 30-day mortality risk for patients admitted to the emergency department with acute heart failure, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Emergency...Read more

2017 13 Sep

On World Sepsis Day, 13 September, JAMA has published new research into the incidence of sepsis in the United States. The challenges of tackling the sepsis burden include accurately measuring sepsis incidence and trends. Clinical diagnoses of sepsis may be subjective, and insurance claims data, a traditional method of surveillance, can be affected...Read more

2017 07 Sep

The risk of dying in the intensive care unit (ICU) is higher for patients admitted at the weekend compared to a weekday, according to a study published in Critical Care . On the other hand the risk of dying in the ICU on a weekend was found to be lower than on a weekday, highlighting the complexity of the so-called 'weekend effect’. While the causes...Read more

2017 22 Aug

In a new analysis, 57% of patients meeting old definition for septic shock did not meet Sepsis-3 criteria. Although Sepsis-3 criteria identified a group of patients with increased organ failure and higher mortality, those patients who met the old criteria and not Sepsis-3 criteria still demonstrated significant organ failure and 14% mortality rate....Read more

2017 22 Aug

The high cost of critical care has engendered research into identifying influential factors. However, previous studies have not considered patient vital status at ICU discharge. This is what a new study has found: The largest drivers of ICU costs at the patient level are day 1 room occupancy and day 1 mechanical ventilation, and mortality before unit...Read more

2017 13 Jun

Findings from a new register study from the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University, Denmark show that mortality following bypass surgery increases after 8-10 years. Prognosis following heart bypass surgery is generally good and has shown improvement over the last three decades. However, this new study shows that mortality increases...Read more

2017 29 May

Urine output (UO) is a vital sign for critically ill patients but standards for monitoring and reporting vary widely between ICUs. New research indicates that intensive monitoring of UO was associated with increased detection of moderate to severe acute kidney injury (AKI), reduced incidence of fluid overload and is independently associated with reduced...Read more

2017 21 Mar

In patients who required perioperative hemodynamic support after cardiac surgery, low-dose levosimendan in addition to standard care did not result in lower 30-day mortality than placebo, according to a multicentre study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. See Also : Categorisation of Survival and Death after Cardiac Arrest Every...Read more

2017 07 Feb

Predicting mortality has always been a corner piece of critical care research and practice, and novel early outcome predictors are needed to guide patient/family expectations and decision-making, according to an Editorial article published in the journal Critical Care. The article discusses how muscle quality and quantity measurement could provide...Read more

2017 03 Jan

Results of a meta-analysis published in PLoS ONE indicate that intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring decreased the mortality rate of patients with severe traumatic brain injury. Specifically, the mortality of ICP monitored group (hospitalised after 2007) was improved, as well as two-week and six-month mortality rates, according to researchers. Previous...Read more

2016 20 Dec

In the CICU setting, the presence of a dedicated cardiac intensivist has been shown to reduce mortality rates in patients with cardiovascular disease who require critical care. The findings are from a study by South Korean researchers and published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology. See Also : Challenges of Critical Care Cardiology...Read more

2016 25 Oct

Mark T. Keegan and Marcio Soares outline “What every intensivist should know about prognostic scoring systems and risk-adjusted mortality” in a recent article in Revista Brasileira de Terapia Intensiva . Scoring systems used in the ICU can be generic or disease-specific, with  many uses. The two categories are organ failure scores and the severity-of-illness...Read more

2016 05 Oct

A conservative protocol for oxygen therapy for intensive care patients led to lower ICU mortality, in a randomised controlled trial that was terminated early after difficulties in enrolment. The Normal Oxygenation Versus Hyperoxia in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) (OXYGEN-ICU)  trial   was conducted in one centre in Italy between March 2010 and October...Read more

2016 06 Sep

Simple measures introduced at ward level reduced deaths from sepsis by nearly half, in a study at Levanger Hospital in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. The research project was carried out by Nord University, Levanger Hospital, the Mid-Norway Centre for Sepsis Research at NTNU and St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim, Norway, and is published in Critical Care....Read more

2016 09 Aug

Researchers at LA BioMed and UCLA examined ICU usage and found that patients admitted in ICUs underwrent more costly and invasive procedures but did not have better mortality rates as compared to patients who were hospitalised with the same medical conditions but were not admitted to the ICU. The study is published in JAMA Internal Medicine . During...Read more

2016 06 Aug

A systematic review and economic evaluation of rapid tests to identify bacteria and fungi in the bloodstream has determined that no definite conclusions can be made on their clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness. The study, from by the UK National Institute for Health Research, evaluated research on SeptiFast, SepsisTest and IRIDICA. 66 studies...Read more

2016 02 Aug

According to a new study published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, a coordinated response from emergency medical services (EMS) and hospital providers can provide life-saving treatment sooner to people suffering deadly heart attacks. ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is considered to be the most deadly type...Read more

2016 02 Aug

According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine , twin siblings with a higher BMI do not have an increased risk of heart attack or mortality. However, a higher BMI is associated with an increase in risk of type 2 diabetes. Peter Nordström, researcher at the Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation at Umeå University explains...Read more

2016 29 Jun

In a study published online by  JAMA Cardiology , Stephen Sidney, M.D., M.P.H., of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, and colleagues examined recent national trends in death rates due to all cardiovascular disease (CVD), heart disease (HD), stroke, and cancer, and also evaluated the gap between mortality rates from HD and cancer.   With...Read more

2016 22 Jun

A model to predict ICU mortality has been designed for use in low-income countries. The development team say that its use of a few easily collected variables  make it suitable for use in sites that care for critically ill patients in low-income countries. This is the first time since 1989 that a model has been developed or validated in a low-income...Read more