Articles

Effects of dexamethasone on immune dysfunction and ventilator-associated pneumonia in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome: an observational study

Dexamethasone improves survival of patients with COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome, but might shorten the delay between the start of invasive mechanical ventilation and the occurrence of ventilator-...

Authors: Martin Cour, Marie Simon, Laurent Argaud, Guillaume Monneret and Fabienne Venet

Clinical significance of lactate clearance in patients with cardiogenic shock: results from the RESCUE registry

Limited data are available on the clinical significance of lactate clearance (LC) in patients with cardiogenic shock (CS). This study investigated the prognostic role of LC in CS patients.

Authors: Ik Hyun Park, Jeong Hoon Yang, Woo Jin Jang, Woo Jung Chun, Ju Hyeon Oh, Yong Hwan Park, Young-Guk Ko, Cheol Woong Yu, Bum Sung Kim, Hyun-Joong Kim, Hyun Jong Lee, Jin-Ok Jeong and Hyeon-Cheol Gwon

Efficacy of probiotics in the prevention of diarrhea in ventilated critically ill ICU patients: meta-analysis of randomized control trials

We comment on the study by Batra et al. on the efficacy of probiotics in the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia in critically ill ICU patients. They also reported that probiotics administration was ...

Authors: Kentaro Shimizu, Tomoya Hirose and Hiroshi Ogura

Efficacy of probiotics in the prevention of diarrhea in ventilated critically ill ICU patients: meta-analysis of randomized control trials: author’s reply

Authors: Priyam Batra, Kapil Dev Soni and Purva Mathur

The story of critical care in Asia: a narrative review

Asia has more critically ill people than any other part of our planet. The aim of this article is to review the development of critical care as a specialty, critical care societies and education and research, ...

Authors: Jason Phua, Chae-Man Lim, Mohammad Omar Faruq, Khalid Mahmood Khan Nafees, Bin Du, Charles D. Gomersall, Lowell Ling, Jigeeshu Vasishtha Divatia, Seyed Mohammad Reza Hashemian, Moritoki Egi, Aidos Konkayev, Mohd Basri Mat-Nor, Gentle Sunder Shrestha, Madiha Hashmi, Jose Emmanuel M. Palo, Yaseen M. Arabi…

Multivariate analysis of factors associated with first-pass success in blind placement of a post-pyloric feeding tube: a retrospective study

Trans-jejunal nutrition via a post-pyloric enteral feeding tube has a low risk of aspiration or reflux; however, placement of the tube using the blind method can be difficult. Assistive devices, such as fluoro...

Authors: Kohei Kurisawa, Masashi Yokose, Hiroyuki Tanaka, Takahiro Mihara, Shunsuke Takaki and Takahisa Goto

Immature granulocytes can help the diagnosis of pulmonary bacterial infections in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia

During COVID-19, immature granulocyte (IG) concentration is heterogeneous with higher concentrations than those found in bacterial sepsis. We investigated the relationship between IG levels at ICU admission an...

Authors: Thomas Daix, Robin Jeannet, Ana Catalina Hernandez Padilla, Philippe Vignon, Jean Feuillard and Bruno François

Association between lymphocyte count in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and mortality

This is a comment on the paper by Dr. Hirasawa et al. on the predictive value of lymphocyte counts in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in patients with acute respiratory failure.

Authors: Yifu Si, Juqin Shao and Caibao Hu

Response to commentary

This is a response to the issues raised in the commentary by Dr. Yifu Si et al.

Authors: Yasutaka Hirasawa, Taka-aki Nakada and Jiro Terada

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on cardiac arrest resuscitation practices and outcomes in non-COVID-19 patients

The effect of changes to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) procedures in response to Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) management and outcomes are unreported. In this m...

Authors: Sau Ki Tong, Lowell Ling, Jack Zhenhe Zhang, Florence H. Y. Yap, Kam Leung Law and Gavin M. Joynt

Adjunctive ketamine for sedation in critically ill mechanically ventilated patients: an active-controlled, pilot, feasibility clinical trial

Ketamine has been shown to decrease sedative requirements in intensive care unit (ICU). Randomized trials are limited on patient-centered outcomes. We designed this pilot trial to evaluate the feasibility of a...

Authors: Marwa Amer, Khalid Maghrabi, Mohammed Bawazeer, Kamel Alshaikh, Mohammad Shaban, Muhammad Rizwan, Rashid Amin, Edward De Vol, Mawadah Baali, Malak Altewerki, Mehreen Bano, Fawziah Alkhaldi, Sanaa Alenazi and Mohammed Hijazi

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

The Japanese Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2020 (J-SSCG 2020), a Japanese-specific set of clinical practice guidelines for sepsis and septic shock created as revised fr...

Authors: Moritoki Egi, Hiroshi Ogura, Tomoaki Yatabe, Kazuaki Atagi, Shigeaki Inoue, Toshiaki Iba, Yasuyuki Kakihana, Tatsuya Kawasaki, Shigeki Kushimoto, Yasuhiro Kuroda, Joji Kotani, Nobuaki Shime, Takumi Taniguchi, Ryosuke Tsuruta, Kent Doi, Matsuyuki Doi…

Circulating dipeptidyl peptidase 3 on intensive care unit admission is a predictor of organ dysfunction and mortality

Our aim was to investigate the prognostic potential of circulating dipeptidyl peptidase 3 (cDPP3) to predict mortality and development of organ dysfunction in a mixed intensive care unit (ICU) population, and ...

Authors: Attila Frigyesi, Maria Lengquist, Martin Spångfors, Martin Annborn, Tobias Cronberg, Niklas Nielsen, Helena Levin and Hans Friberg

The Ichikado CT score as a prognostic tool for coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonia: a retrospective cohort study

The relationship between computed tomography (CT) and prognosis of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia remains unclear. We hypothesized that the Ichikado CT score, obtained in the first 24 h of hospital admission...

Authors: Alan Araiza, Melanie Duran, Cesar Patiño, Paul E. Marik and Joseph Varon

Patient–ventilator asynchrony, impact on clinical outcomes and effectiveness of interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Patient–ventilator asynchrony (PVA) is a common problem in patients undergoing invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) in the intensive care unit (ICU), and may accelerate lung injury and diaphragm mis-contractio...

Authors: Michihito Kyo, Tatsutoshi Shimatani, Koji Hosokawa, Shunsuke Taito, Yuki Kataoka, Shinichiro Ohshimo and Nobuaki Shime

Monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with 28-day mortality in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome: a retrospective study

Systemic inflammation relates to the initiation and progression of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red blood cell distribution width (RDW)/albumin ratio hav...

Authors: Lijuan Yang, Chang Gao, Fengyuan Li, Ling Yang, Jiahao Chen, Shiqi Guo, Ying He and Qiang Guo

A scoping review of registry captured indicators for evaluating quality of critical care in ICU

Excess morbidity and mortality following critical illness is increasingly attributed to potentially avoidable complications occurring as a result of complex ICU management (Berenholtz et al., J Crit Care 17:1-...

Authors: Issrah Jawad, Sumayyah Rashan, Chathurani Sigera, Jorge Salluh, Arjen M. Dondorp, Rashan Haniffa and Abi Beane

Conservative oxygen therapy for critically ill patients: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Conservative oxygen strategy is recommended in acute illness while its benefit in ICU patients remains controversial. Therefore, we sought to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine such oxyge...

Authors: Xiao-Li Chen, Bei-Lei Zhang, Chang Meng, Hui-Bin Huang and Bin Du

Primary success of electrical cardioversion for new-onset atrial fibrillation and its association with clinical course in non-cardiac critically ill patients: sub-analysis of a multicenter observational study

Electrical cardioversion (ECV) is widely used to restore sinus rhythm in critically ill adult patients with atrial fibrillation, although its prognostic value is uncertain. This study aims to elucidate the cli...

Authors: Nozomu Shima, Kyohei Miyamoto, Seiya Kato, Takuo Yoshida and Shigehiko Uchino

Association between increased mortality and bronchial fibroscopy in intensive care units and intermediate care units during COPD exacerbations: an analysis of the 2014 and 2015 National French Medical-based Information System Databases (PMSI)

The course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is punctuated by exacerbations, most often of infectious origin, responsible for many intensive care unit (ICU) and intermediate care unit (IMCU) admi...

Authors: Matthieu Amalric, Engi Ahmed, Boris Jung, Carey Suehs, Nicolas Molinari, Arnaud Bourdin and Jeremy Charriot

Autotaxin levels in serum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid are associated with inflammatory and fibrotic biomarkers and the clinical outcome in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome

Autotaxin (ATX) is a secreted glycoprotein that is widely present in extracellular biological fluids and has been implicated in many inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. However, the clinical impact of the rele...

Authors: Lijuan Gao, Xiaoou Li, Hao Wang, Yue Liao, Yongfang Zhou, Ke Wang, Jun Hu, Mengxin Cheng, Zijian Zeng, Tao Wang and Fuqiang Wen

Insight into the use of tympanic temperature during target temperature management in emergency and critical care: a scoping review

Target temperature management (TTM) is suggested to reduce brain damage in the presence of global or local ischemia. Prompt TTM application may help to improve outcomes, but it is often hindered by technical p...

Authors: Michela Masè, Alessandro Micarelli, Marika Falla, Ivo B. Regli and Giacomo Strapazzon

Conventional risk prediction models fail to accurately predict mortality risk among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 in intensive care units: a difficult time to assess clinical severity and quality of care

Since the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it has remained unknown whether conventional risk prediction tools used in intensive care units are applicable to patients with COVID-19. Th...

Authors: Hideki Endo, Hiroyuki Ohbe, Junji Kumasawa, Shigehiko Uchino, Satoru Hashimoto, Yoshitaka Aoki, Takehiko Asaga, Eiji Hashiba, Junji Hatakeyama, Katsura Hayakawa, Nao Ichihara, Hiromasa Irie, Tatsuya Kawasaki, Hiroshi Kurosawa, Tomoyuki Nakamura, Hiroshi Okamoto…

A novel risk score for the prediction of airway management in patients with deep neck space abscess: a multicenter retrospective cohort study

Airway management, including noninvasive endotracheal intubation or invasive tracheostomy, is an essential treatment strategy for patients with deep neck space abscess (DNSA) to reverse acute hypoxia, which ai...

Authors: Yu Lin, Wenxiang Gao, Huijun Yue, Weixiong Chen, Tianrun Liu, Jin Ye, Qian Cai, Fei Ye, Long He, Xingqiang Xie, Guoping Xiong, Bin Wang, Feng Pang, Pei Li, Jianhui Wu, Bin Wang…

Premorbid β1-selective (but not non-selective) β-blocker exposure reduces intensive care unit mortality among septic patients

β-blockers may protect against catecholaminergic myocardial injury in critically ill patients. Long-term β-blocker users are known to have lower lactate concentrations and favorable sepsis outcomes. However, the ...

Authors: Ming-Jen Kuo, Ruey-Hsing Chou, Ya-Wen Lu, Jiun-Yu Guo, Yi-Lin Tsai, Cheng-Hsueh Wu, Po-Hsun Huang and Shing-Jong Lin

β1-blocker in sepsis

The use of ultrashort-acting β1-blockers recently has attracted attention in septic patients with non-compensatory tachycardia. We summarized the metabolic and hemodynamic effects and the clinical evidence of ...

Authors: Daisuke Hasegawa, Ryota Sato and Osamu Nishida

Creation of an artificial intelligence model for intubation difficulty classification by deep learning (convolutional neural network) using face images: an observational study

Tracheal intubation is the gold standard for securing the airway, and it is not uncommon to encounter intubation difficulties in intensive care units and emergency rooms. Currently, there is a need for an obje...

Authors: Tatsuya Hayasaka, Kazuharu Kawano, Kazuki Kurihara, Hiroto Suzuki, Masaki Nakane and Kaneyuki Kawamae

Interleukin-9 promotes intestinal barrier injury of sepsis: a translational research

Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Intestinal mucosal barrier injury is one of the important manifestations of sepsis. Interleukin-9 (IL-9) and ...

Authors: Jia-Kui Sun, Jing Zhou, Xin-Pei Sun, Xiao Shen, Dong-Mei Zhu, Xiang Wang, Su-Ming Zhou and Xin-Wei Mu

Cardiac biomarkers in acute respiratory distress syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the intensive care unit. Biochemical markers of cardiac dysfunction are associated with high mortality in many respir...

Authors: Dilip Jayasimhan, Simon Foster, Catherina L. Chang and Robert J. Hancox

A novel mouse model of heatstroke accounting for ambient temperature and relative humidity

Heatstroke is associated with exposure to high ambient temperature (AT) and relative humidity (RH), and an increased risk of organ damage or death. Previously proposed animal models of heatstroke disregard the...

Authors: Kazuyuki Miyamoto, Keisuke Suzuki, Hirokazu Ohtaki, Motoyasu Nakamura, Hiroki Yamaga, Masaharu Yagi, Kazuho Honda, Munetaka Hayashi and Kenji Dohi

Why participation in an international clinical trial platform matters during a pandemic? Launching REMAP-CAP in Japan

REMAP-CAP, a randomized, embedded, multifactorial adaptive platform trial for community-acquired pneumonia, is an international clinical trial that is rapidly expanding its scope and scale in response to the C...

Authors: Kazuhiro Kamata, Kazuaki Jindai, Nao Ichihara, Hiroki Saito, Hideaki Kato, Hiroyuki Kunishima, Ayumi Shintani, Osamu Nishida and Shigeki Fujitani

Afterload-related cardiac performance identifies cardiac impairment and associates with outcome in patients with septic shock: a retrospective cohort study

Septic patients with cardiac impairment are with high mortality. Afterload-related cardiac performance (ACP), as a new tool for diagnosing septic cardiomyopathy (SCM), still needs to be evaluated for its impac...

Authors: Wei-yan Chen, Zhen-hui Zhang, Li-li Tao, Qi Xu, Xing Wei and Min-sheng Chen

Association of noninvasive respiratory support with mortality and intubation rates in acute respiratory failure: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Noninvasive respiratory support devices may reduce the tracheal intubation rate compared with conventional oxygen therapy (COT). To date, few studies have compared high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) use with nonin...

Authors: Hideto Yasuda, Hiromu Okano, Takuya Mayumi, Masaki Nakane and Nobuaki Shime

Functional status of mechanically ventilated COVID-19 survivors at ICU and hospital discharge

A significant number of COVID-19 patients have been treated using invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). The ability to evaluate functional status of COVID-19 survivors early on at ICU and hospital discharge m...

Authors: Benjamin Musheyev, Lara Borg, Rebeca Janowicz, Michael Matarlo, Hayle Boyle, Gurinder Singh, Victoria Ende, Ioannis Babatsikos, Wei Hou and Tim Q. Duong

What place for virtual reality in the intensive care unit during medical procedures?

In the intensive care unit, patients are subject to discomforts and pain. Their management is essentially based on pharmacologic approaches. Immersive virtual reality could represent an adjunctive non-invasive...

Authors: Floriane Puel, Vincent Minville and Fanny Vardon-Bounes

An A-E assessment of post-ICU COVID-19 recovery

The COVID-19 global pandemic has placed unprecedented strain on healthcare and critical care services around the world. Whilst most resources have focused on the acute phase of the disease, there is likely to ...

Authors: Matthew Cadd and Maya Nunn

Dynamic change of heart rate in the acute phase and clinical outcomes after intracerebral hemorrhage: a cohort study

Dynamic change of heart rate in the acute phase and clinical outcomes after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) remains unknown. We aimed to investigate the associations of heart rate trajectories and variability w...

Authors: Shoujiang You, Yupin Wang, Zian Lu, Dandan Chu, Qiao Han, Jiaping Xu, Chun-Feng Liu, Yongjun Cao and Chongke Zhong

A longitudinal change of syndecan-1 predicts risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome and cumulative fluid balance in patients with septic shock: a preliminary study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the time course of syndecan-1 (Syn-1) plasma levels, the correlation between Syn-1 and organ damage development, and the associations of Syn-1 level with cumulative ...

Authors: Yuka Kajita, Tsuguaki Terashima, Hisatake Mori, Md. Monirul Islam, Takayuki Irahara, Masanobu Tsuda, Hideki Kano and Naoshi Takeyama

The author’s response

Authors: Yohei Hirano, Shunsuke Madokoro, Yutaka Kondo, Ken Okamoto and Hiroshi Tanaka

A reassessment about included studies and certainty of evidence on a systematic review and meta-analysis of steroid for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome

We comment on the study by Hirano et al. about the effect of steroids in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. It might be necessary to include only the existing randomized control trials and to r...

Authors: Shodai Yoshihiro and Shunsuke Taito

Association between physical restraint requirement and unfavorable neurologic outcomes in subarachnoid hemorrhage

Physical restraint has been commonly indicated to patients with brain dysfunction in neurocritical care. The effect of physical restraints on outcomes of critically ill adults remains controversial as no rando...

Authors: Kyoko Akiyama, Akihiko Inoue, Toru Hifumi, Kentaro Nakamura, Takuya Taira, Shun Nakagawa, Keisuke Jinno, Arisa Manabe, Sayaka Kinugasa, Hikaru Matsumura, Hajime Shishido, Shota Yokoyama, Tomoya Okazaki, Hideyuki Hamaya, Koshiro Takano, Kazutaka Kiridume…

Predictors of failure with high-flow nasal oxygen therapy in COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory failure: a multicenter observational study

We aimed to describe the use of high-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) in patients with COVID-19 acute respiratory failure and factors associated with a shift to invasive mechanical ventilation.

Authors: Ricard Mellado-Artigas, Luis Eduardo Mujica, Magda Liliana Ruiz, Bruno Leonel Ferreyro, Federico Angriman, Egoitz Arruti, Antoni Torres, Enric Barbeta, Jesús Villar and Carlos Ferrando

Correction to: The discovery of biological subphenotypes in ARDS: a novel approach to targeted medicine?

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Karin Wildi, Samantha Livingstone, Chiara Palmieri, Gianluigi LiBassi, Jacky Suen and John Fraser

Prognostic value of lymphocyte counts in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in patients with acute respiratory failure: a retrospective cohort study

Cellular patterns in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) are used to distinguish or rule out particular diseases in patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF). However, whether BALF cellular patterns can pr...

Authors: Yasutaka Hirasawa, Taka-aki Nakada, Takashi Shimazui, Mitsuhiro Abe, Yuri Isaka, Masashi Sakayori, Kenichi Suzuki, Keiichiro Yoshioka, Takeshi Kawasaki, Jiro Terada, Kenji Tsushima and Koichiro Tatsumi

The incidence of pulmonary thromboembolism in COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of observational studies

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection is associated with a prothrombotic state. We performed a meta-analysis of proportions to estimate the weighted average incidence of pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE)...

Authors: Jun Jie Ng, Zhen Chang Liang and Andrew M. T. L. Choong

Development and validation of an online model to predict critical COVID-19 with immune-inflammatory parameters

Immune and inflammatory dysfunction was reported to underpin critical COVID-19(coronavirus disease 2019). We aim to develop a machine learning model that enables accurate prediction of critical COVID-19 using ...

Authors: Yue Gao, Lingxi Chen, Jianhua Chi, Shaoqing Zeng, Xikang Feng, Huayi Li, Dan Liu, Xinxia Feng, Siyuan Wang, Ya Wang, Ruidi Yu, Yuan Yuan, Sen Xu, Chunrui Li, Wei Zhang, Shuaicheng Li…

Development and validation of the predictive risk of death model for adult patients admitted to intensive care units in Japan: an approach to improve the accuracy of healthcare quality measures

The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) III-j model is widely used to predict mortality in Japanese intensive care units (ICUs). Although the model’s discrimination is excellent, its calibr...

Authors: Hideki Endo, Shigehiko Uchino, Satoru Hashimoto, Yoshitaka Aoki, Eiji Hashiba, Junji Hatakeyama, Katsura Hayakawa, Nao Ichihara, Hiromasa Irie, Tatsuya Kawasaki, Junji Kumasawa, Hiroshi Kurosawa, Tomoyuki Nakamura, Hiroyuki Ohbe, Hiroshi Okamoto, Hidenobu Shigemitsu…

Oxygen administration for patients with ARDS

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a fatal condition with insufficiently clarified etiology. Supportive care for severe hypoxemia remains the mainstay of essential interventions for ARDS. In recent ...

Authors: Shinichiro Ohshimo

Prediction of patients requiring intensive care for COVID-19: development and validation of an integer-based score using data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of South Korea

Unavailability or saturation of the intensive care unit may be associated with the fatality of COVID-19. Prioritizing the patients for hospitalization and intensive care may be critical for reducing the fatali...

Authors: JoonNyung Heo, Deokjae Han, Hyung-Jun Kim, Daehyun Kim, Yeon-Kyeng Lee, Dosang Lim, Sung Ok Hong, Mi-Jin Park, Beomman Ha and Woong Seog

Self-citation policies and journal self-citation rate among Critical Care Medicine journals

Inappropriate authors’ self-citation (A-SC) is a growing mal-practice possibly boosted by the raising importance given to author’s metrics. Similarly, also excessive journals’ self-citation (J-SC) practice may...

Authors: Filippo Sanfilippo, Stefano Tigano, Alberto Morgana, Paolo Murabito and Marinella Astuto