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The accurate prediction of outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is of major importance. The recently described Full Outline of UnResponsiveness (FOUR) is well adapted to mechanically ventilated patients and does not depend on verbal response.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and outcome of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) among patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Design: A prospective, multi-institutional, initial cohort study including 28-day follow-up. Settings: Thirty-six French intensive care units (ICUs) from a working group of the French Intensive Care Society (SRLF). Patients: All the patients entering the ICUs during a 14-day period were screened prospectively. Hypoxemic patients, defined as having a PaO2/FIO2ratio (P/F) of 300 mmHg or less and receiving mechanical ventilation, were classified into three groups, according to the Consensus Conference on ARDS: group 1 refers to ARDS (P/F: 200 mmHg or less and bilateral infiltrates on the chest X-ray); group 2 to acute lung injury (ALI) without having criteria for ARDS (200 < P/F ≤ 300 mmHg and bilateral infiltrates) and group 3 to patients with P/F of 300 mmHg or less but having exclusion criteria from the previous groups. Results: Nine hundred seventy-six patients entered the ICUs during the study period, 43 % of them being mechanically ventilated and 213 (22 %) meeting the criteria for one of the three groups. Among all the ICU admissions, ARDS, ALI and group 3 patients amounted, respectively, to 6.9 % (67), 1.8 % (17) and 13.3 % (129) of the patients, and represented 31.5 %, 8.1 % and 60.2 % of the hypoxemic, ventilated patients. The overall mortality rate was 41 % and was significantly higher in ARDS patients than in the others (60 % vs 31 % p< 0.01). In group 3, 42 patients had P/F less than 200 mmHg associated with unilateral lung injury; mortality was significantly lower (40.5 %) than in the ARDS group. In the whole group of hypoxemic, ventilated patients, septic shock and severity indices but not oxygenation indices were significantly associated with mortality, while the association with immunosuppression revealed only a trend (p= 0.06). Conclusions: In this survey we found that very few patients fulfilled the ALI non-ARDS criteria and that the mortality of the group with ARDS was high.

The optimal technique for diagnosing nosocomial bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients cared for in the intensive care unit remains unclear, especially in the subgroup of patients requiring mechanical ventilation. An important advance has been the development of the protected specimen brush technique. We and others have demonstrated that secretions obtained using this technique and evaluated by quantitative cultures are useful in distinguishing patients with and without pneumonia. However, this procedure has important limitations in that results are not available immediately and in that a few false negative or false positive results may be observed. Recently, the use of bronchoalveolar lavage has been suggested to be of value in establishing the diagnosis of pneumonia, since the cells and liquid recovered can be examined microscopically immediately after the procedure and are also suitable for quantitative culture. We believe that microscopic identification of bacteria within cells recovered by lavage may provide a sensitive and specific means for early and rapid diagnosis of pneumonia in this setting and that the lavage technique can be conveniently incorporated into a protocol along with the quantitative culture of samples obtained using the protected specimen brush. This combination will probably improve the overall accuracy of diagnosis while allowing the administration of prompt empiric antimicrobial therapy in the majority of patients with pneumonia.

The optimal technique for diagnosing nosocomial bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients cared for in the intensive care unit remains unclear, especially in the subgroup of patients requiring mechanical ventilation. An important advance has been the development of the protected specimen brush technique. Secretions obtained using this technique and evaluated by quantitative cultures are useful in distinguishing patients with and without pneumonia. However, this procedure has important limitations in that results are not available immediately, and in that a few false negative of false positive results may occur. Bronchoalveolar lavage has been suggested to be of value in establishing the diagnosis of pneumonia, because the cells and liquid recovered can be examined microscopically immediately after the procedure and are also suitable for quantitative culture. Microscopic identification of bacteria within cells recovered by lavage may provide a sensitive and specific means for the early and rapid diagnosis of pneumonia in this setting. The lavage technique can also be conveniently incorporated into a protocol along with quantitative culture of samples obtained using the protected specimen brush. This combination will probably improve the overall accuracy of diagnosis while allowing the administration of prompt empiric antimicrobial therapy in most patients with pneumonia.

Abstract: Objective: To determine whether ultrasound guidance can help operators to improve the results of jugular vein access in the ICU. Design: Prospective, randomized study. Setting: General Intensive Care Unit of a University Hospital. Patients: Seven-nine patients were assigned to internal jugular vein cannulation using anatomical landmarks alone (control group, n = 42) or with ultrasound guidance (ultrasound group, n = 37). Intervention: All cannulations were performed by junior house staff under the direct supervision of a senior physician. In the ultrasound group, an ultrasonography (7.5 MHz) was used and the transducer was covered by a sterile sheath. The placement and direction of the cannulating needle were determined on the ultrasound image. Measurements and results: Internal jugular vein cannulation was successful in 37/37 (100 %) patients in the ultrasound group and in 32/42 patients (76 %) in the control group (p < 0.01). Average access time was longer in the control group (235 � 408 s vs 95 � 174 s, p = 0.06) and carotid artery puncture occurred in five patients in each group (p = 0.83). Jugular cannulation was successful at the first attempt in 26 % in the control group and 43 % in the ultrasound group (p = 0.11). Thirty-two patients (86 %) in the ultrasound group and 23 patients (55 %) in the control group (p < 0.05) were cannulated within 3 min. The cannula could therefore not be inserted within 3 min in 19 patients (45 %) in the control group. Failure was explained by thrombosis (n = 1), small caliber of the internal jugular vein (< 5 mm, n = 3), abnormal vascular relations (n = 3). Among the ten primary failures of cannulation, an internal jugular vein catheter was able to be inserted in four cases by an experienced physician on the side initially selected and with ultrasound guidance in two cases. The catheter was inserted into the contralateral internal jugular vein under ultrasound guidance in the remaining four cases. Conclusion: Ultrasound guidance improved the success rate of jugular vein cannulation in ICU patients. Our results suggest that ultrasound guidance should be used when the internal jugular vein has not been successfully cannulated within 3 min by the external landmark-guided technique.

There is ample experimental evidence that polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) play a critical role in the pathogenesis of the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Since interleukin-8 (IL-8) is a strong chemotactic factor for PMN, we measured IL-8 levels in plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid of 18 patients, 12 with ARDS and 6 with severe pneumonia uncomplicated by ARDS, all of whom had an increased number of PMN in BAL fluid. Seven healthy subjects served as controls. We found elevated levels of IL-8 in the alveolar spaces of all patients tested. Elevated BAL IL-8 levels were related to a fatal outcome and the presence of shock and correlated with a general clinical severity index (simplified acute physiological score). BAL fluid levels of IL-8 were significantly higher in patients with ARDS than in patients with pneumonia. In plasma, IL-8 levels were increased similarly in all patients and did not correlate with survival or the presence of shock. The BAL fluid-to-plasma ratio of IL-8 was significantly greater than that of tumor necrosis factor alpha, indicating higher local production of IL-8. Moreover, the presence of a primed subpopulation of blood PMN with respect to H2O2 production indicates that IL-8 may contribute to the neutrophil-mediated process in the pathogenesis of ARDS and pneumonia.

Abstract

Abstract

Vancomycin penetration into the fluid lining the epithelial surface of the lower respiratory tract was studied by performing fiberoptic bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage on 14 critically ill, ventilated patients who had received the drug for at least 5 days. The apparent volume of epithelial lining fluid (ELF) recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage was determined by using urea as an endogenous marker. Vancomycin levels in ELF ranged from 0.4 to 8.1 micrograms/ml (mean, 4.5 micrograms/ml), while the mean simultaneous level of the drug in plasma was 24 micrograms/ml (range, 9 to 37.4 micrograms/ml). There was a significant relationship (r = 0.64, P < 0.02) between vancomycin levels in plasma and those in ELF, with a correlation whose slope (0.15) indicated that the blood-to-ELF ratio of drug penetration was 6:1. Using the albumin concentration in ELF as a marker of lung inflammation, we found that vancomycin penetration was higher in patients with ELF albumin values of > or = 3.4 mg/ml than in patients with normal values (< 3.4 mg/ml) (P < 0.02). These results suggest that the vancomycin distribution includes the ELF of the lower respiratory tract at a concentration that is dependent upon the levels in blood and the alveolar capillary membrane protein permeability. These concentrations were well above the MICs for most staphylococci and enterococci.