Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine – serie

Measuring the quality of a complex service like critical care that combines the highest technology with the most intimate caring is a challenge. Recently, con­ sumers, clinicians, and payers have requested more formal assessments and comparisons of the quality and costs of medical care [2]. Donabedian [1] pro­ posed a framework for thinking about the quality of medical care that separates quality into three components: structure, process, and outcome. An instructive analogy for understanding this framework is to imagine a food critic evaluating the quality of a restaurant. The critic might comment on the decoration and lighting of the restaurant, how close the tables are to each other, the extent of the wine list and where the chef trained. These are all evaluations of the restaurant structure. In addition, the critic might comment on whether the service was courteous and timely - measures of process. Finally, the critic might comment on outcomes like customer satisfaction or food poisoning. Similarly, to a health care critic, structure is the physical and human resources used to deliver medi­ cal care. Processes are the actual treatments offered to patients. Finally, outcomes are what happens to patients, for example, mortality, quality of life, and satisfac­ tion with care (Table 1). There is a debate about which of these measurements is the most important measure of quality.

In recent years, intensive care and emergency medicine have emerged as new medical specialties. Better understanding of acute illness and continuous advances in technology have fostered rapid development of new forms of therapy. This volume provides updates in this rapidly expanding field and includes various topics presented by recognized experts in the field.

This book presents a comprehensive survey of acute heart failure. A series of experts recognized worldwide discuss specific topics so that, together, a wide spectrum of experimental and clinical investigations are covered. Pathophysiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects are included. The present volume will help clinicians deal with the important problem of acute heart failure. It will help provide an up-to-date reference for those involved in cardiology, internal medicine, pediatrics, anesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine.

Respiratory failure is a complex disease process whereby the underlying disease and therapeutic measures interact. covers the impact of bronchodilators, corticosteroids, and antibiotics in acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease;

Hemodynamic monitoring is one of the major diagnostic tools available in the acute care setting to diagnose cardiovascular insufficiency and monitor changes over time in response to interventions. However, the rationale and efficacy of hemodynamic monitoring to affect outcome has come into question. We now have increasing evidence that outcome from critical illness can be improved by focused resuscitation based on existing hemodynamic monitoring, whereas non-specific aggressive resuscitation impairs survival. Thus, this book frames hemodynamic monitoring into a functional perspective wherein hemodynamic variables and physiology interact to derive performance and physiological reserve estimates that themselves drive treatment. This philosophy, as well as the limitations and applications of common and evolving hemodynamic measures and their focused use in the care of critically ill patients are discussed, relevant to one underlying truth: No monitoring device, no matter how simple or sophisticated, will improve patient-centered outcomes useless coupled to a treatment which, itself, improves outcome.

Although its roots date back to the early decades of the 20th century, critical care medicine did not emerge as a specialty in medicine until the 1970’s. Over the last 30 years or so, the field of critical care medicine has grown tremendously and there is now a solid body of scientific information that forms the foundation for the practice of critical care medicine. But, now as physicians and hospitals around the world focus to an ever greater extend on providing high quality care, the practice of critical care medicine will continue to grow in visibility and importance among clinicians and the general public as well.This book seeks to identify the trends in critical care medicine that will form the basis for practice over the next ten years. Predicting the future is always risky. Nevertheless, the ideas articulated in this book are likely to serve as a road map for intensivists, hospital administrators and governmental leaders interested in healthcare, as they seek to improve the quality and efficiency of hospital-based services.

There have been tremendous advances in understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in sepsis and contributing to the development of multiple organ dysfunction and mortality in this setting. The chapters in this book provide up-to-date insights into important pathways that are initiated by sepsis.

Whereas a great deal has been learned during the past quarter century about the inflammatory processes associated with sepsis (and other related conditions, such as ischemia/reperfusion injury), our understanding is far less developed with respect to the pathophysiological events that lead to organ dysfunction under these conditions.

This book presents a comprehensive survey in which internationally recognized experts discuss specific topics. The wide spectrum of experimental and clinical investigations include the pathophysiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects. Update 1989 represents the series' continuous effort to combine the most recent developments in one reference source for all those involved in cardiology, internal medicine, pediatrics, anesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine.

Selective decontamination is a technique which combines short-term and long-term antimicrobials to prevent or treat the acquisition and subsequent carriage of microorganisms causing late colonization and infections. The antimicrobials are selective in that they leave the indigenous, mostly anaerobic flora more or less intact, whilst the effective decontamination provides a genuine breakthrough in the endogenous route of pathogenesis. The improvements in decontamination techniques presented here offer significant reduction in infection related morbidity and mortality among trauma patients.

This book proves essential to understanding the problem of brain failure by emphasizing the various therapeutic approaches which have previously been somewhat neglected. The book summarizes the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of the various forms of brain failure, examining in detail structural and examining metabolic causes. Special consideration has been given to patients with severe head trauma, stroke, subarachnoid haemorrhage and to a variety of metabolic causes of coma. The relationship between cerebral blood flow and cerebral metabolic rate is explored, providing important conclusions with regard to therapy. New techniques of monitoring brain failure are described and their clinical usefulness defined, providing intensive care physicians, anaesthesiologists and neurologists a solid basis on which to build their knowledge of the brain-failure patient.

This book presents a comprehensive survey in which internationally recognized experts discuss specific topics. The wide spectrum of experimental and clinical investigations include the pathophysiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects. Update 1990 represents the series' continuous effort to combine the most recent developments in one reference source for all those involved in cardiology, internal medicine, pediatrics, anesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine.

This survey provides a review of the physiological and biophysical foundations of hemodynamics, and describes the clinical tools used to evaluate these parameters. Monitoring strategies integrating theoretical and practical aspects of hemodynamics in commonly-encountered ICU conditions are presented. Part of a series on intensive care medicine, the book is designed for clinicians involved in cardiology, internal medicine, paediatrics, anesthesia, intensive care and emergency medicine.

This is a collection of essays on the mechanisms that regulate the transport and utilization of oxygen in health and disease. The chapters have been written by researchers in the areas of biochemistry, cellular and organ physiology, intensive care medicine and surgery. The book includes the latest therapeutic strategies on how to treat hypoxia and alterations in oxygen transport during sepsis. One contributor discusses the integration of basic biochemical and bioenergetic control analysis with physiological and clinical studies of altered oxygen transport.

This welcome addition to the series Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine emerges from the most recent of a series of meetings organized by Alvar Net and Salvador Benito of Barcelona. This gathering provided a forum for European intensive care specialists to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience on, the measurements feasible in mechanically ventilated patients. The scope was ambitious, ranging from basics like the measurement of airway pressure and blood gases to topics such as CT, MRI and the multiple inert gas elimination technique. The success of the meeting made publication a logical consequence. The book is unique in its breadth. The contributors, from numerous centers in Europe and North America, cover all tech­ niques employed in intensive care units, describing indications, contraindications, procedures, biases and complications. This volume will be an invaluable source for intensive care specialists and other clinicians. Alongside practical descriptions of procedures they employ routinely (spirometry, measurement of sys­ temic vascular oxygen pressure, Swan-Ganz catheterization, BOPA etc.), they will find accounts of such sophisticated techniques as on­ line measurement offunctional residual capacity, isotope determina­ tion of ventilation/perfusion ratios, diaphragmatic metabolism and peripheral oxygen exchange. I am especially happy to see the book published by Springer-Verlag, which has distinguished itself in the field of intensive care medicine.

This survey of recent advances in the field of intensive care and emergency medicine covers a wide spectrum of experimental and clinical investigations, including pathophysiologic, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects. Topics considered include cardiopulmonary resuscitation, myocardial infarction, circulatory shock, heart-lung interactions, severe infections, intravenous fluids, renal failure, sedation and paralysis, and neurologic crisis.

This aim of this book is to focus on a very common situation seen in medical practice, the acute catabolic state. This pathophysiological sit­ uation is rarely discussed as a separate entity, possibly because it is seen in all specialties of medicine and results from a great diversity of agents, insults, and diseases. It thus seemed to be high time to gather the most important and up-to-date knowledge on this entity, and the primary aim of the book is to offer a collection of updated information on the acute catabolic state. Another objective of the book is to make clear that, apart from the general response of the whole organism during the acute catabolic state, a series of organ-specific responses will also take place, which must also be considered during treatment. It has become very clear of these organ-spe­ from working on this book that current knowledge cific responses is very sparse and in some areas almost nonexistent; this book thus also focuses on the responses and changes which take place in different organs during the acute catabolic state and the inter­ action between these organs and their responses.

The manuscripts in this book were generated from a conference occurring at the University of Heidelberg in September 1996. These manuscripts have been reviewed and updated by the designated authors in late 1997 for publication in early 1998. Conferences occur for a variety of reasons. These include the need to exchange information where complex activities are undergoing reassessment or change. For the emergency and critical care man­ agement of stroke this is certainly the situation. Today, both the pri­ mary care and the neurologic physician must provide medical care in an environment where daily change in the knowledge base of: brain function, disease mechanism(s), therapeutic efficacy, and cost control are all occurring. In addition, patient advocacy has become increasingly complex because government, employers, insurers, health care providers as well as families all desire a voice in the phy­ sician relationship with the patient. Our conference subject was the organization of rapid care delivery and the development of a ration­ al basis for treatment of a previously untreatable disorder acute stroke. Thus, the obvious need for multiple open and free discus­ sions about priority setting and modification of current treatment plans. Clearly, the face to face opportunities provided by this first conference on Emergency Management And Critical Care Of Stroke (EMACCOS) are required when patient care issues are as complex as these. Neuroscience is new to the experience of active therapeutic inter­ vention.

From the viewpoint of a health economist, the intensive care unit (leU) is a particularly fascinating phenomenon. It is the epitome of "high-tech" medicine and frequently portrayed as the place where life-saving miracles are routinely wrought. But the popular imagina­ tion is also caught up in the darker side, when agonizing decisions have to be made to avoid futile and inhuman continuation of expen­ sive treatments. My analytical interests led me to approach these issues by asking what the evidence tells us about which leu activities are very bene­ ficial in relationship to their costs and which are not. This quickly translates into a slightly different question, namely, which patients are most appropriately treated in an leu and which not. Unfor­ tunately, it is very hard to answer these questions because it has pro­ ved very difficult to investigate these issues in the manner which is now regarded as the "gold standard:' namely by conducting rando­ mized clinical trials or alternative courses of action. I think this is a pity, and I am not at all convinced that it would be unethical to do so in many cases, because there is wide variation in practice and ge­ nuine doubt as to which practices are best -the two conditions that need to be fulfilled before such a trial is justifiable.

This book represents the collective efforts of several excellent,clini­ cian-scientists who have devoted many years of their lives and many hours in each day to the application of physiological principles to the bedside care of critically ill patients. The universal challenge of car­ diovascular instability confronts all health care providers who treat patients in an acute care setting. Whether that be in the field or Emergency Department, general ward, operating suite or intensive care unit, all patients carry a common theme of potential life-taking processes which must to identified and treated in a timely fashion or severe morbidity and death rapidly follow. Since the cardiovascular system subserves the body in maintain­ ing metabolic stability through global and regional blood flow at an adequate pressure to insure appropriate autoregulation of blood flow distribution, it would be difficult to describe the mechanisms of cardiovascular instability their diagnosis and treatment without placing them within the context of overall metabolism and tissue vi­ ability. Accordingly, this book has been grouped into four arbitrary subsets. First, we address issues of basic cardiovascular physiology. Classic developments of ventricular pump function and arterial re­ sistance are balanced with newer applications of ventriculo-arterial coupling, right ventricular function, and tissue oxygen delivery.

To integrate current knowledge in terms of basic and clinical science and to highlight problems, thirty world-renowned experts in the field of acute lung injury describe the state of up to date knowledge regarding the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical management of acute lung injury. Novel techniques for the clinical support of these difficult patients are discussed in full. Prospects for successful pharmacological intervention are also outlined. This book is aimed at those practising within the field of critical care and is likely to become an indispensable aid to all concerned with the investigation and management of patients with severe respiratory failure.

Sepsis and Innovative Treatment: The Odyssey R. C. Bone The Odyssey by Homer, dates back to the 8th century, B. C. [1]. It is a great epic adventure of Odysseus's dramatic journey from Troy back home to Ithaca. Odysseus survives the ordeals of this journey and returns with new powers and insights. The study of the pathogenesis and treatment of sepsis has also been an odys- sey. I feel we will return from this odyssey with new insights and treatments. However, as with Odysseus, this will occur only after considerable struggle. In the 1980s we had a rather simplistic view of sepsis. It was a highly lethal complication caused by infection and often charac- terized by shock and multi-organ failure. Our knowledge of the inflammatory responses associated with sepsis was embryonic compared to today. The inflammatory response was often treat- ment with mega-dose corticosteroids along with fluid resuscita- tion, vasopressors and antibiotics.Because of the paucity of mul- ti-center controlled trials documenting the risk/benefit ratio of the treatment of sepsis with corticosteroids, two large multi-cen- ter controlled trials were organized to evaluate the role of corti- costeroids in sepsis [2, 3]. Because animal models showed bene- fits of corticosteroids only with pre-treatment or early treatment, a definition of sepsis was used that did not require positive cul- ture documentation or septic shock to be included in the studied population.

Over the last 10 years the syndrome of severe acute renal failure has progressively changed in its epidemiology. It is now most frequently seen in critically ill patients, typically in the context of sepsis and multiorgan failure. This epidemiologic change has meant that intensive care physicians and nephrologists must now work in close cooperation at all times and must take many com­ plex issues of prevention, pathogenesis, and management into account that they did not previously have to tackle. Simultaneously, the last 10 years have seen the development of major technical and conceptual changes in the field of renal replacement therapy. There are now previously unavailable therapeutic options that provide physicians with a flexible and rapidly evolving armamentarium. The nutrition of these patients, previously limited by the par­ tial efficacy of renal replacement therapies, has also become more aggressive and more in tune with the needs of critically ill patients. Increased understanding of the pathogenesis of the multi­ organ failure syndrome has focused on the role of many soluble "mediators of injury" (cytokines, leukotrienes, prostanoids etc.). These molecules are likely to participate in the pathogenesis of acute renal failure. Their generation and disposal is also affected by different techniques of artificial renal support.

This book concentrates on problems generated by acute care in severely traumatized patients during the first 24 hours after injury. During this hectic period, highly complicated problems have to be solved at the site of the accident, during transport to hospital, and in hospital. Multiple medical and paramedical disciplines are involved in providing care to the severely injured. This book endeavors to present a problem-oriented approach to the diagnostic, therapeutic, and organizational aspects that may be encountered.

This monograph focuses on splanchnic function in health and disease. It represents a distillate of the communication that took place at the First International Symposium of Applied Physiol­ ogy of the Peripheral Circulation, "Splanchnic Circulation: No Longer a Silent Partner." The individual chapters roughly follow the individual presentations and display in durable form the con­ cepts and importance that this symposium achieved. The concept for this annual symposium was the child of An­ tonio Artigas, who not only recruited sponsorship but also Jean­ Francois Dhainaut and me to help with the organization and work. We chose the splanchnic circulation as the peripheral cir­ culatory system to be presented first for many important reasons. Much new information has become available which demon­ strates, as the title of the symposium implies, that splanchnic function has major influence on the overall expression of health and disease in humans. All aspects of splanchnic physiology, it seems, have been rediscovered to be dynamic, important, and complex in their interactions within individual tissues and among remote tissues and organs. It is hoped that after having reviewed this monograph the reader will agree that the splanchnic circula­ tion and its organ systems are emerging as important aspects of critical illness and host-defense homeostasis.

Nitric Oxide (NO) is a free radical, a gas, and a pluripotent product of mammalian cells. Only a few years ago, scientific discussions of NO were largely held in the context of the chemistry of air pollution. Now, however, the great significance of NO as a signalling and cytotoxic molecule has captured the attention of the biomedical community. This book provides a very up-to-date review of the role of NO in sepsis and ARDS. Consideration is given to NO both as a pathophysiologic mediator as well as a therapeutic agent. An internationally recognized group of scientists and clinicians have contributed chapters dealing with cutting-edge science and practical clinical strategies. Numerous tables and charts have been included to aid the reader in understanding this fascinating and important subject.

Dysfunction of the gastrointestinal tract in critically ill patients has recently become a focus of intensive research. This book, the first one on this topic, is a comprehensive overview of what is currently known about the role of the gut in patients requiring intensive care. The definitions and pathogenesis of intestinal dysfunction are critically evaluated. Currently available and potential new ways to monitor intestinal function in the intensive care setting are presented. Emphasis has been placed on the evaluation of therapeutic strategies in the prevention and treatment of gut dysfunction. Options for monitoring and treating gut dysfunction in critically ill patients are rapidly evolving. This volume provides state-of-the-art information for both clinicians and clinical researchers.

Intensive care in childhood is a relatively new field of medicine. Due to major differences in physiology, many disciplines are involved in the care of the critically ill child. Apart from specific disease patterns, morbidity in direct relation to the stay in the ICU or the underlying disease mainly determine long term morbidity. Today we understand that the treatment of the critically ill child can have a great impact on the quality of life in adulthood. This book covers the whole spectrum of intensive care in childhood. It is based on the experience of leading specialists from the various fields involved in the treatment of these children.