It is well documented that a large percentage of the general population is either vitamin D insufficient or deficient. Vitamin D deficiency adversely affects bone health. More recently, it has been reported that vitamin D is an important component in immune function and glycemic control Substantial data exist that demonstrate an association between vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency and mortali...

OBJECTIVE Timely treatment with neuraminidase inhibitor (NAI) drugs appears to improve survival in adults hospitalized with influenza. We analyzed California surveillance data to determine whether NAI treatment improves survival in critically ill children with influenza. METHODS We analyzed data abstracted from medical records to characterize the outcomes of patients aged 0 to 17 years hospit...

Micronutrients refer to a group of organic vitamins and inorganic trace elements that serve many functions in metabolism. Assessment of micronutrient status in critically ill children is challenging due to many complicating factors, such as evolving metabolic demands, immature organ function, and varying methods of feeding that affect nutritional dietary intake. Determination of micronutrient s...

OBJECTIVE To review the role of secretory phospholipase A2 in the pathogenesis of multiple organ failure in the critically ill patient. DATA SOURCES Relevant articles and published reviews on secretory phospholipase A2 in critical illness. SUMMARY OF REVIEW Secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) has an important role in inflammation and in antimicrobial defence. However, excessive activity of s...

Physiologic stress associated with illness and hospitalization is known to result in gastrointestinal ulceration, especially among the critically ill. The complication of this stress-related mucosal disease could be prevented with appropriate application of pharmacologic prophylaxis. Vigilance by the nursing staff is required to properly detect and manage the condition.

Three examples of non-syphilitic paroxysmal cold haemoglobinuria (PCH) in children are described which occurred, within a period of 16 days, in association with a febrile illness. No definite viral aetiology or obvious epidemiological association could be established. A Donath-Landsteiner antibody of anti-P specificity was demonstrated in all three patients. The serological aspects of PCH are c...

Commentary Critical care providers regularly face decisions regarding timing, dose, formulation, and route of nutrition in heterogeneous critically ill patients. Early enteral feeding individualized to patient energy needs is recommended (1). However, many ICUs do not routinely use indirect calorimetry, and estimates of energy needs may not be met in a subset of patients, particularly those wit...

© 2012 Eslamian and Rahbar, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Neuromuscular Disorders in Critically-Ill Patients – Approaches to Electrophysi...

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of critical illness and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. The epidemiology and pathogenesis of AKI and changes in renal function and preventive strategies are areas of interest. Although the aetiology of AKI is often multifactorial, sepsis has been consistently found to be a leading contributing factor in AKI during critical illn...

This commentary highlights the contribution of the article by Chapman and colleagues assessing the relationships between glucose absorption, glycaemia and gastric emptying during critical illness. In addition to several more expected findings, their data suggest that factors other than slow gastric emptying may limit glucose absorption during critical illness. This hypothesis has received littl...