Journal of Intensive Care

Intensive care unit versus high-dependency care unit for patients with acute heart failure: a nationwide propensity score-matched cohort study

The nationwide, propensity score-matched, retrospective cohort study was performed using a national administrative inpatient database in Japan. Authors identified all patients who were hospitalized for acute heart failure and admitted to the ICU or HDU on the day of hospital admission from April 2014 to March 2019. Propensity score-matching analysis was performed to compare the in-hospital mortality between acute heart failure patients treated in the ICU and HDU on the day of hospital admission.

Hiroyuki Ohbe, Hiroki Matsui & Hideo Yasunaga 
Volume 9, Article number: 78 (2021) 

Automated alert and activation of medical emergency team using early warning score

An observational study using prospectively collected data from consecutive patients managed by the MET at a university-affiliated, tertiary hospital from March 2013 to December 2019. The automated alert system automatically calculates the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) and subsequently activates MET when the MEWS score is 7 or higher, which was implemented since August 2016. The outcome measures of interest including hospital mortality in patients with MEWS of 7 or higher were compared between pre-implementation and post-implementation groups of the automated alert and activation system in the primary analysis. The association between the implementation of the system and hospital mortality was evaluated with logistic regression analysis.

Soo Jin Na, Ryoung-Eun Ko, Myeong Gyun Ko &  Kyeongman Jeon
Volume 9, Article number: 69 (2021)

Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine offers collections of guidelines on the diagnosis and management of a range of conditions that are related to intensive care medicine.

The Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2020 (J-SSCG 2020)

The clinical practice guideline for the management of ARDS in Japan (2017)

The Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2016 (J-SSCG 2016) (2018)

The Japanese Clinical Practice Guideline for acute kidney injury 2016 (2018)

Journal of Intensive Care is the official journal of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine (JSICM).
In 2022, the Society sponsors 60% of the Journal’s APC for the articles so that the author is charged only 40% of the official APC. The authors who wish to request this sponsorship needs to submit special institutions code during the submission. Please see 'Fees and funding' information section for details.

COVID-19 & related researches-JINC Article Collection

see collection of COVID-19 related research articles published in the Journal of Intensive Care. 

Journal of Intensive Care publish set of articles that discuss given topic from opposing standpoints. 

Topic 1:
Acute glycemic control in diabetics. How sweet is optimal? 
Pro:  Sweeter is better in diabetes
Con: Just as sweet as in nondiabetic is better

Topic 2: 
Aggressive fluid management in the critically ill patients.
Pro:  fluids should be aggressively managed in critically ill patients
Con: “aggressive” may lead to “excessive”

Topic 3:
Is Anti-coagulation therapy effective for septic DIC?
Pro:  A question is “what are the optimal targets for anticoagulant therapies?”
Con:  Should we treat sepsis-induced DIC with anticoagulants?

See list of all article collections

Oxygen administration for critically ill patients
This thematic series offers four narrative reviews offering latest information on Oxigen administration for critically ill patients, aiming to help readers  determine the optimal target and methods.

Nutrition in Intensive care
This thematic series focuses on basic nutritional therapy with selection of papers reviewing appropriate evaluation of calorie requirement, enteral integrity and enteral tolerance in “Critical Care Nutrition”. 

Neurocritical Care revisited
The second Thematic Series on Neurocritical Care puts together selection of reviews providing different aspects and latest insight into Neurocritical Care.

Cardiovascular intensive care
This thematic series presents 5 review articles providing latest understandings on the management of patients with severe CVD. 

Current overview in pediatric critical care
In this thematic series, the authors review the current management of pediatric sepsis, pediatric organ transplantation, pediatric cardiac surgery and more.

Trauma-induced coagulopathy and critical bleeding
In this thematic series, the authors examine the pathophysiology of trauma-induced coagulopathy and discuss the novel therapeutic strategies for the management of patients with severe trauma.

Point-of-care ultrasound
In this thematic series, the authors review various clinical studies on point-of-care ultrasound, which were carried out based on the ideas of “extraction”, “creation” and “integration”.

Organ dysfunction in sepsis
In this thematic series, the authors review the pathophysiology of organ dysfunction in sepsis. The role of two main pathomechanisms of organ dysfunction, DIC and endothelial cell dysfunction, are also discussed.

Neurocritical care
In this thematic series, the role of monitoring is highlighted to guide the treatment and therapeutic intervention tailored for the pathophysiologic degree of brain injury.

Fluid management
In this thematic series, the principal and practical matters underlying fluid therapy are highlighted to allow intensivists around the world to better understand and manage such primary and consistent intervention as fluid therapy in critically ill patients.

Yoshifumi Kotake, Editor-in-Chief

Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology at Toho University School of Medicine and Toho University Ohashi Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Kotake also serves as the Director of the Intensive Care Unit, Toho University Ohashi Medical Center.