Changes in zinc status and zinc transporters expression in whole blood of patients with Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS).

INTRODUCTION: Critically ill patients develop severe stress, inflammation and a clinical state that may raise the utilization and metabolic replacement of many nutrients and especially zinc, depleting their body reserves. This study was designed to assess the zinc status in critical care patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), comparing them with a group of healthy people, and studying the association with expression of zinc transporters. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This investigation was a prospective, multicentre, comparative, observational and analytic study. Twelve critically ill patients from different hospitals and 12 healthy subjects from Granada, Spain, all with informed consent were recruited. Data on daily nutritional assessment, ICU severity scores, inflammation, clinical and nutritional parameters, plasma and blood cell zinc concentrations, and levels of transcripts for zinc transporters in whole blood were taken at admission and at the seventh day of the ICU stay. RESULTS: Zinc levels on critical ill patient are diminish comparing with the healthy control (HS: 0.94 ±â€¯0.19; CIPF: 0.67 ±â€¯0.16 mg/dL). The 58% of critical ill patients showed zinc plasma deficiency at beginning of study while 50.0% of critical ill after 7 days of ICU stay. ZnT7, ZIP4 and ZIP9 were the zinc transporters with highest expression in whole blood. In general, all zinc transporters were significantly down-regulated (P < 0.05) in the critical ill population at admission in comparison with healthy subjects. Severity scores and inflammation were significantly associated (P < 0.05) with zinc plasma levels, and zinc transporters ZIP3, ZIP4, ZIP8, ZnT6, ZnT7. Expression of 11 out of 24 zinc transporters was analysed, and ZnT1, ZnT4, ZnT5 and ZIP4, which were downregulated by more than 3-fold in whole blood of patients. CONCLUSION: In summary, in our study an alteration of zinc status was related with the severity-of-illness scores and inflammation in critical ill patients since admission in ICU stay. SIRS caused a general shut-down of expression of zinc transporters in whole blood. That behavior was associated with severity and inflammation of patients at ICU admission regardless zinc status. We conclude that zinc transporters in blood might be useful indicators of severity of systemic inflammation and outcome for critically ill patients.

Pyridoxal-5'-phosphate deficiency is associated with hyperhomocysteinemia regardless of antioxidant, thiamine, riboflavin, cobalamine, and folate status in critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Critically ill patients develop severe stress, inflammation and a clinical state that may raise the utilization and metabolic replacement of pyridoxal-5'-phosphate decreasing their body reserves. This study was designed to assess the nutritional pyridoxal-5'-phosphate status in critical care patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome, comparing them with a group of healthy people, and studying it's association with factors involved in the pyridoxine and other B vitamins metabolism, as the total antioxidant capacity and Hcy as cardiovascular risk biomarker. METHODS: Prospective, multicentre, comparative, observational and analytic study. One hundred and three critically ill patients from different hospitals, and eighty four healthy subjects from Granada, Spain, all with informed consent. Data from daily nutritional assessment, ICU severity scores, clinical and nutritional parameters, antioxidant status and homocysteine levels was taken at admission and at the seventh day of the ICU stay. RESULTS: Thiamine, riboflavin, pyridoxine and folate status proved deficient in a large number of patients, being significantly lower in comparison with control group, and significantly decreased at 7th day of ICU stay. Higher homocysteine was observed in patients compared with control group (p < 0.05) where 31.5 and 26.8 percent of subjects presented hyperhomocysteinemia at initial and final of study, respectively. Antioxidant status was lower than control group in two periods analysed, and decreased at 7th day of ICU stay (p < 0.05) being associated with PLP deficiency. PLP deficiency was also correlated with hyperhomocysteinemia at two times measured (r. -0.73, p < 0.001; r. -0.69, p < 0.001, respectively), showing at day 7 an odds ratio of 6.62 in our multivariate model. CONCLUSION: Critically ill patients with SIRS show deficient B vitamin and low antioxidant statuses. Despite association found between PLP deficiency and low antioxidant status in critically ill patients, PLP deficiency was only associated with hyperhomocysteinemia regardless of antioxidant, riboflavin, cobalamine, and folate statuses in critically ill patients with SIRS at seventh day of ICU stay. PLP deficient patients presented about six times more risk of cardiovascular disease than non deficients.

IMBALANCES IN PROTEIN METABOLISM IN CRITICAL CARE PATIENT WITH SYSTEMIC INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE SYNDROME AT ADMISSION IN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT.

BACKGROUND: trauma and severe infections cause remarkable metabolic changes in patient with SIRS from an adaptive response aimed to control the underlying disease, repairing damaged tissue, and to synthesize substrates. If the attack is intense and sustained and the patient has a compromised nutritional status, can evolve into multiple organ failure and death. OBJECTIVE: assessment of nutritional proteic status and the involvement of proteins and inflammatory factors in critically ill patients. METHOD: multicenter observational analytical study in critical ill patients at the admission in ICU. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: patients showed disturbances in clinical nutritional parameters which confirm their hypercatabolic situation, showing malnutrition state at admission, where 42.9% had plasma levels below the reference prealbumin. Amino acid profile was situated below the reference values and 99% of patients had low plasma transferrin. Significant differences were observed in total protein, ferritin and transferrin parameters adjusted by CRP levels, being higher when patients presented high inflammation in the case of ferritin and the opposite for the rest of parameters. Adjusting APACHE and SOFA scores according to low, medium and high severity, results showed significant differences in creatinine, urea, and transferrin, being lower at high severity grade for the last one. CONCLUSION: critical illness is characterized by a high degree of stress and accelerated degradation of proteins that cause malnutrition, systemic inflammation and organ dysfunction, with a significant association between albumin, ferritin and transferrin.

Antecedentes: el trauma y las infecciones severas causan cambios metabólicos notables en los pacientes con SRIS como una respuesta adaptativa dirigida a controlar la enfermedad subyacente, la reparación del tejido dañado y para sintetizar sustratos. Si el ataque es intenso y sostenido y el paciente tiene un estado nutricional comprometido puede evolucionar a insuficiencia orgánica múltiple y muerte. Objetivo: evaluación del estado nutricional proteico y la participación de las proteínas y los factores inflamatorios en pacientes críticamente enfermos. Método: estudio analítico observacional multicéntrico en pacientes enfermos críticos en la admisión en la UCI. Resultados y discusión: los pacientes mostraron alteraciones en los parámetros nutricionales clínicos que confirman su situación hipercatabólica, mostrando malnutrición a la admisión en UCI, donde el 42,9% tenían niveles plasmáticos de prealbúmina por debajo de la referencia. Los aminoácidos se encuentran por debajo de los valores de referencia y el 99% de los pacientes presentaron bajos niveles plasmáticos de transferrina. Se observaron diferencias significativas en los niveles de proteína total, ferritina y transferrina ajustados por los niveles de PCR, siendo mayor cuando los pacientes presentaron altos valores de inflamación, en el caso de la ferritina, y lo opuesto para el resto de parámetros. Al estratificar por las puntuaciones APACHE y SOFA de acuerdo a la gravedad baja, media y alta, los resultados mostraron diferencias significativas en creatinina, urea y transferrina, siendo menor cuanto mayor era el grado de severidad para la transferrina. Conclusión: la enfermedad crítica se caracteriza por un alto grado de estrés y la degradación acelerada de proteínas que causan malnutrición, inflamación sistémica y la disfunción de órganos, con una asociación significativa entre albúmina, ferritina y transferrina.

Imbalances in protein metabolism in critical care patient with systemic inflammatory response syndrome at admission in intensive care unit / Alteración del metabolismo proteico en paciente crítico con síndrome de respuesta inflamatoria sistémica al ingreso en la unidad de cuidados intensivos

Background: trauma and severe infections cause remarkable metabolic changes in patient with SIRS from an adaptive response aimed to control the underlying disease, repairing damaged tissue, and to synthesize substrates. If the attack is intense and sustained and the patient has a compromised nutritional status, can evolve into multiple organ failure and death. Objective: assessment of nutritional proteic status and the involvement of proteins and inflammatory factors in critically ill patients. Method: multicenter observational analytical study in critical ill patients at the admission in ICU. Results and discussion: patients showed disturbances in clinical nutritional parameters which confirm their hypercatabolic situation, showing malnutrition state at admission, where 42.9% had plasma levels below the reference prealbumin. Amino acid profile was situated below the reference values and 99% of patients had low plasma transferrin. Significant differences were observed in total protein, ferritin and transferrin parameters adjusted by CRP levels, being higher when patients presented high inflammation in the case of ferritin and the opposite for the rest of parameters. Adjusting APACHE and SOFA scores according to low, medium and high severity, results showed significant differences in creatinine, urea, and transferrin, being lower at high severity grade for the last one. Conclusion: critical illness is characterized by a high degree of stress and accelerated degradation of proteins that cause malnutrition, systemic inflammation and organ dysfunction, with a significant association between albumin, ferritin and transferrin (AU)

Antecedentes: el trauma y las infecciones severas causan cambios metabólicos notables en los pacientes con SRIS como una respuesta adaptativa dirigida a controlar la enfermedad subyacente, la reparación del tejido dañado y para sintetizar sustratos. Si el ataque es intenso y sostenido y el paciente tiene un estado nutricional comprometido puede evolucionar a insuficiencia orgánica múltiple y muerte. Objetivo: evaluación del estado nutricional proteico y la participación de las proteínas y los factores inflamatorios en pacientes críticamente enfermos. Método: estudio analítico observacional multicéntrico en pacientes enfermos críticos en la admisión en la UCI. Resultados y discusión: los pacientes mostraron alteraciones en los parámetros nutricionales clínicos que confirman su situación hipercatabólica, mostrando malnutrición a la admisión en UCI, donde el 42,9% tenían niveles plasmáticos de prealbúmina por debajo de la referencia. Los aminoácidos se encuentran por debajo de los valores de referencia y el 99% de los pacientes presentaron bajos niveles plasmáticos de transferrina. Se observaron diferencias significativas en los niveles de proteína total, ferritina y transferrina ajustados por los niveles de PCR, siendo mayor cuando los pacientes presentaron altos valores de inflamación, en el caso de la ferritina, y lo opuesto para el resto de parámetros. Al estratificar por las puntuaciones APACHE y SOFA de acuerdo a la gravedad baja, media y alta, los resultados mostraron diferencias significativas en creatinina, urea y transferrina, siendo menor cuanto mayor era el grado de severidad para la transferrina. Conclusión: la enfermedad crítica se caracteriza por un alto grado de estrés y la degradación acelerada de proteínas que causan malnutrición, inflamación sistémica y la disfunción de órganos, con una asociación significativa entre albúmina, ferritina y transferrina (AU)

Los residentes en las unidades de cuidados intensivos, ¿cuál es su percepción de la formación que reciben? / Residents in an Intensive Care Unit, what perception they have on their training?

Objetivo. Este trabajo intenta responder a la pregunta de cuál es la visión que tienen los residentes de su formación en las unidades de cuidados intensivos (UCI).Sujetos y métodos. Hemos realizado un estudio cualitativo tipo grounded theory. Los participantes son residentes de cualquier especialidad que estuviesen trabajando en las UCI durante el estudio. El diseño tiene tres partes: percepción subjetiva de los residentes de aquellos aspectos que ellos consideran más útiles para su formación, priorización de las actividades regulares más características de las UCI y entrevistas semiestructuradas con informadores claves. Resultados. Nuestro trabajo identifica que los residentes consideran como eje de su formación la práctica clínica a ‘pie de cama’ desarrollada con autonomía y apoyada en una buena tutorización. Paralelamente, otras competencias nucleares como la investigación, la comunicación en situaciones complejas, el trabajo en equipo o la gestión de recursos están infravaloradas, mientras que otras como la seguridad del paciente o la bioética no se han detectado en las respuestas de los residentes. Conclusión. La percepción de los residentes sobre formación durante su estancia en las UCI adolece de algunas carencias, dado que ciertos aspectos claves de la medicina actual no se perciben como prioridades en dicha formación (AU)

Aim. Our work tries to answer the following question: what is the perception of residents on their training in the Intensive Care Units (ICU)?Subjects and methods. We have conducted a qualitative study based on grounded theory. Participants are residents from different specialties working in the ICU of four hospitals of our National Health Service. The study consist of three parts: resident’s subjective perception of those aspects most appreciate in their clinical practice; resident’s prioritizations of routine ICU’s activities, and semi-structured interviews with key informants. Results. According to the resident’s opinions, the clinical practice at the beside of patients, and carried out with autonomy and with a good tutoring support are central to their training; nevertheless some central competencies such as research, difficult communication, team work or resource management are undervalued, while others such as patient safety or bioethics are absent from their comments. Conclusions. Our work highlight that resident’s perception about their training during they compulsory period in ICU has some shortcoming, because some key aspects of current medicine are not perceived as priorities in their training (AU)

Oxidative stress is increased in critically ill patients according to antioxidant vitamins intake, independent of severity: a cohort study.

INTRODUCTION: Critically ill patients suffer from oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). Although ROS/RNS are constantly produced under normal circumstances, critical illness can drastically increase their production. These patients have reduced plasma and intracellular levels of antioxidants and free electron scavengers or cofactors, and decreased activity of the enzymatic system involved in ROS detoxification. The pro-oxidant/antioxidant balance is of functional relevance during critical illness because it is involved in the pathogenesis of multiple organ failure. In this study the objective was to evaluate the relation between oxidative stress in critically ill patients and antioxidant vitamin intake and severity of illness. METHODS: Spectrophotometry was used to measure in plasma the total antioxidant capacity and levels of lipid peroxide, carbonyl group, total protein, bilirubin and uric acid at two time points: at intensive care unit (ICU) admission and on day seven. Daily diet records were kept and compliance with recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of antioxidant vitamins (A, C and E) was assessed. RESULTS: Between admission and day seven in the ICU, significant increases in lipid peroxide and carbonyl group were associated with decreased antioxidant capacity and greater deterioration in Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score. There was significantly greater worsening in oxidative stress parameters in patients who received antioxidant vitamins at below 66% of RDA than in those who received antioxidant vitamins at above 66% of RDA. An antioxidant vitamin intake from 66% to 100% of RDA reduced the risk for worsening oxidative stress by 94% (ods ratio 0.06, 95% confidence interval 0.010 to 0.39), regardless of change in severity of illness (Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score). CONCLUSION: The critical condition of patients admitted to the ICU is associated with worsening oxidative stress. Intake of antioxidant vitamins below 66% of RDA and alteration in endogenous levels of substances with antioxidant capacity are related to redox imbalance in critical ill patients. Therefore, intake of antioxidant vitamins should be carefully monitored so that it is as close as possible to RDA.

Six-year mortality and quality of life in critically ill patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE: To study the mortality and quality of life (QOL) of survivors at 6 yrs after intensive care unit (ICU) admission for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. DESIGN: Prospective, multiple-center cohort study. SETTING: A total of 86 ICUs throughout Spain. PATIENTS: Patients in the Project for the Epidemiological Analysis of Critical Care Patients (PAEEC) project with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were included. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The sample comprised 742 patients; 508 of them were admitted for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 379 of these required intermittent positive-pressure ventilation. The mean age of the patients was 65.2 +/- 9.89 yrs, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) III score was 66.6 +/- 21.04; preadmission QOL questionnaire score was 7 +/- 4.82 points, and hospital mortality was 31.8%. At 6 yrs, 32.2% had died after hospital discharge, 21.6% could not be traced, and 107 patients were alive (18.3% of the 582 followed-up patients). QOL of survivors was worse than preadmission (6.55 +/- 5.6 vs. 4.92 +/- 4.5 points, p < .05), but 72% of patients were self-sufficient. Among the 379 patients admitted to the ICU for acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation and requiring intermittent positive-pressure ventilation, 36.7% died in the hospital; at 6 yrs after hospital discharge, 31.4% had died, 18.7% could not be traced, and 50 patients (16.2% of followed-up patients) were alive. Multivariate analysis with logistic regression showed that the mortality at 6 yrs was related to age (odds ratio, 1.046; 95% confidence interval, 1.023-1.071), APACHE III score (odds ratio, 1.013; 95% confidence interval, 1.001-1.024), and preadmission QOL score (odds ratio, 1.139; 95% confidence interval, 1.078-1.204). CONCLUSION: The 6-yr mortality of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease requiring ICU admission is high. Mortality is mainly influenced by pre-ICU admission QOL. At 6 yrs, at least 15% are alive; survivors have a worse QOL compared with pre-ICU admission, although three quarters of them are self-sufficient.