Objectives: To evaluate the use of APACHE II (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Status Evaluation) in Chinese patients managed in the resuscitation room of an Accident & Emergency Department of one of the teaching hospitals in Hong Kong. Design: Prospective study on Chinese patients. Setting: Resuscitation Room in an Accident & Emergency Department of a university hospital in Hong Kong. Patie...

PURPOSE To investigate the prognostic significance of endocan, compared with procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP),white blood cells (WBC), neutrophils (N), and clinical severity scores in patients with ARDS. METHODS A total of 42 patients with ARDS were initially enrolled, and there were 20 nonsurvivors and 22 survivors based on hospital mortality. Plasma levels of biomarkers were me...

BACKGROUND Our purpose was to assess the performance of general severity systems (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation [APACHE], Simplified Acute Physiology Score [SAPS], and Mortality Probability Models [MPM]) and to compare them with the Parsonnet score to predict mortality after cardiac surgery. METHODS AND RESULTS This was a prospective observational study of 465 cardiac surgery...

BACKGROUND There has been an increase in worldwide infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter. This poses a therapeutic challenge as few treatment options are available. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of polymyxins and ampicillin/sulbactam for treating infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter spp. and to evaluate prognostic...

Chest Physicians members (in the Chest Infections and Critical Care Network) in 2004 to elucidate which of these admission guidelines and diagnostic criteria are utilized in practice. The first questionnaire asked physicians which of the following ICU admission criteria they use: American Thoracic Society (ATS) 1993 and 2001,1 British Thoracic Society (BTS) CURB or CURB-65,1 pneumonia severity ...

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the letter by Karatzas et al. [1] commenting on our recent paper concerning the effects of IgM-enriched immunoglobulin preparations in severe sepsis [2]. It was mentioned in the letter that the study protocol of Karatzas et al. regarding the design and inclusion criteria (except the age) was similar to our study design. It seems that there is another ...

Acute pancreatitis Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory process of pancreatic tissue, which can affect other distant organ systems. Its severity can range from mild inflammation to severe, progressive pancreatic necrosis, and it can lead to multiorgan failure that may have a mortality rate as high as 20% to 30% [1]. Several scoring systems have been proposed to determine its severity. Amo...

INTRODUCTION This study aimed to examine the long-term outcome for patients with end-stage renal failure (ESRF) who survived multiple-organ failure. METHODS We performed a review of databases from the renal medicine service and intensive care units (ICU) of the participating hospitals within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK. Patients with ESRF admitted to ICU who required sup...

RATIONALE Hyperglycaemia predicts a poor outcome in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients. Whether this is true for respiratory failure necessitating non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is not known. OBJECTIVES To determine whether hyperglycaemia within 24 h of admission independently predicts outcome of NIV during acute decompensated ventilatory failure complicating chronic obstructive pulmonary dis...

Hematosepsis is a systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) with suspected or confirmed infection, which is the most common infectious disease in clinical neonatal intensive care unit. As the rapid development of neonatal hematosepsis caused by various basic diseases, the mortality rate is high, and there are some sequelae.We report the lasted study to date with 96 cases from Fujian Longya...