Assessment of adequacy of ICU admission.

BACKGROUND: Direct costs of critical care are increasing more than in other health care sectors. Tools are needed to evaluate adequacy of ICU admission in order to have a proper allocation of ICU resources. OBJECTIVE: evaluation of different ways used to assess adequacy of ICU admission. STUDY TYPE: 12 months prospective descriptive study. SETTING: 24 Intensive Care beds of a 1000 beds tertiary hospital in Italy. PATIENTS: 2314 patients admitted to Cardiac Surgery, General and Postoperative Intensive Care Units. INTERVENTIONS: all patients admitted to the ICUs were studied. Information was collected for the patients' age, source of admission, diagnoses, surgical status, reason for admission, SAPS II score, NEMS daily score, LOS, ICU outcome. The number of available beds (ventilated or not) and nurse working hours were obtained. RESULTS: 2373 patients were admitted to the ICs, with an overall readmission rate of 2.5%, and a total amount of 8084 NEMS record. The mean Work Utilization Ratio was significantly different between the three IC and between working and weekend days in PACU and CSU. The 49.7% of the NEMS points is scored by the SAPS II 43-78 patients, corresponding to the 29.2% of >24 h admissions. The level of care provided and the trend of each admission was derived from NEMS score according to Iapichino. The proportion of HT records in each IC was 88.3% in ICU, 73.1% in PACU and 91.2% in CSU; the outcome (dead/discharged) was significantly different between LT and HT. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the difficulties imposed by he rigid nurses' work organization in Italy, a daily data collection about level of care, severity of illness, workload utilization could provide, together with standard administrative indexes, the necessary framework to assess and to improve adequacy of ICU admission.

Bioethical issues related to continuous renal replacement therapy in intensive care patients.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the ethical approach of intensivists and nephrologists to continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). DESIGN: A questionnaire. SETTING: The First International Course on Critical Care Nephrology. PARTICIPANTS: The participants in the course (around 500). RESULTS: Most participants think that establishing ethical criteria for managing CRRT is a medical task, as clinicians have adequate criteria for defining futility. However, many responders would grant the request of starting futile CRRT or would maintain it if requested by the family. Only 55% believe that informed consent is necessary for initiating CRRT; one out of four would start or maintain unwanted life-saving CRRT. In case of lack of equipment, the majority would select the patients, excluding the worst one or on a "first-come, first-served" basis. Withholding and withdrawing are regarded differently by most responders. Again, most think that every vital support should be withdrawn when futile, but practical and psychological aspects still influence the final decision. Responders think that ethics critical care committees can help in the management of ethical problems in ICU. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that several ethical questions are still unsolved and that practical and psychological aspects of the treatment process can be stronger than bioethical principles.

Use of adsorptive mechanisms in continuous renal replacement therapies in the critically ill.

The pathophysiology of sepsis is becoming a more complicated scenario. In sepsis, endotoxin or other gram-positive derived products induce a complex and dynamic cellular response giving rise to several mediators known to be relevant in the pathogenesis of septic shock, such as specific mediators. substances responsible for up- or down-regulation of cytokine receptors and cytokine antagonists, inactivators of nuclear factor-kappaB or signal transduction pathways, and precursor molecules. In this article, we delve into some new concepts stemming from the use of sorbents in continuous plasma filtration. The rationale is based on the assumption that the nonspecific removal of several mediators of the inflammatory cascade and cytokine network may improve outcome in a rabbit model of septic shock and hemodynamics in a pilot clinical study. The importance of looking for innovative treatments specifically targeted for the special needs of the critically ill patients rather than using concepts and technology applied to the treatment of chronic renal failure is underlined.

Cellulose triacetate: another membrane for continuous renal replacement therapy.

The evolution of technology and biomaterials has permitted a parallel development of renal replacement therapies in the acute, critically ill patient. From the original continuous artero-venous hemofiltration method new techniques such as continuous veno-venous hemofiltration, hemodiafiltration and high-flux dialysis have been developed and are clinically used. Similar progress has been made with artificial membranes. We investigated the possibility of using a modified cellulosic membrane for continuous therapies, assessing the hydraulic characteristics and clearance performances of high-flux cellulose triacetate hemodiafilter (0.7 m2) in vitro and in vivo. The flowdynamic characteristics of the filter suggest its optimal use in veno-venous pump-drive techniques. Efficiency was excellent, with urea daily clearances as high as 50 liters or more. The high permeability and porosity of the membrane also increased the clearances of larger solutes such as creatinine and inulin. No side effects occurred during treatment and we conclude that cellulose triacetate may be considered a good alternative to synthetic membranes in continuous renal replacement therapies.

Present and future options in continuous renal replacement therapies of sepsis and MOF.

Conventional continuous extracorporeal treatments such as hemofiltration and hemodiafiltration have not achieved significant reduction in cytokine plasma levels, in spite of their increasing popularity mainly related to the unnecessary fluid restriction thereby rendering adequate caloric intake possible (Actualités Nephrologiques, 1994). This is mainly due to reduced filtration, to saturability of the adsorption-related phenomena and to the absence of a convective mass transfer. New approaches have been more recently introduced. The concept of blood purification has been applied in some new innovative techniques that use non-selective or selective sorbents. We will focus on the criteria used by others and us to assess the efficiency in vitro and in animal models of sepsis of more recently introduced non-selective and selective devices. Among the innovative techniques, modalities aimed at the plasma treatment will receive emphasis. These modalities that are based on plasma filtration with the use of different sorbents. The preliminary results obtained from ongoing clinical trials will be presented. We will also expand on the technical, biological and clinical aspects that should be addressed in order to establish a new modality as innovative in the treatment of sepsis.

Evaluation of a portable prototype to analyze heart rate variability.

Power spectrum analysis of heart rate fluctuations provide a quantitative noninvasive means of assessing the functioning of the cardiovascular control system. Until now the equipment used to study heart rate variability (HRV) have been complicated systems utilized mostly in research centers. Simpler systems are needed for routine clinical application. We have evaluated, through clinical practice, the usefulness of prototype equipment which allows acquisition and analysis of ECG signals by a portable electrocardiograph and a personal computer in which sophisticated software is installed. We performed one hundred forty-five recordings in twenty-two patients admitted to ICU. With this technique two different predictive patterns were detected: one concerning survivors, the other concerning nonsurvivors. Reliability, portability, simplicity and quality results are the main advantages of the system. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to perform HRV analysis in patients with ECG arrhythmia. This is because the program does not allow the choice of an arrhythmia-free section of the tachogram to analyze.

Heart rate variability and severe brain damage: preliminary data.

Severe brain damage may cause alterations of cardiovascular function: heart rate, particularly, require the integrity of the vagal, sympathetic and central nervous systems. We studied brain-heart functional relation and neurovegetative modulation by spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). This technique allows separate evaluation of the sympathetic and vagal components of heart rate modulation. In order to correlate changes in HRV with brain damage, we performed 45 recordings in 6 patients (5/1 M/F) by means of autoregressive analysis (AAR). All patients were admitted to the ICU for severe brain damage (anoxic, traumatic or vascular). In 4 patients clinical outcome was brain death, in 2 permanent vegetative status. Two different patterns were found: one in patients with brain death, the other in patients with vegetative status. The small number of patients does not allow definitive conclusions from collected data, but that application of spectral analysis of HRV seems to be a useful monitoring of brain damage subjects.

[Propofol in single bolus for treatment of elevated intracranial hypertension]. / Il propofol in singolo bolo nel trattamento della ipertensione endocranica.

Eleven patients with intracranial pressure (ICP) above 20 mmHg despite hyperventilation and neurosedation were treated with a bolus of propofol (1.5 mg/kg) i.v. At baseline and 1-2-5-10-15-30-45 minutes after propofol administration we recorded the values of PIC, systolic arterial pressure (SAP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR) and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP), calculated as MAP less PIC. In the first ten minutes after propofol we observed a statistically significant (p less than 0.05) decrease of ICP and SAP. MAP decreased in the first five minutes only. Consequently HR increased at the same time. CPP decreased in the first two minutes after administration of the drug, but without statistical evidence. We conclude that propofol, in our opinion, can be used to treat intracranial hypertension but the hemodynamic effects in hypovolemic patients must be taken into consideration.