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Purpose: Although admitting cancer patients to the ICU is no longer an issue, it may be valuable to identify patients perceived least likely to benefit from admission. Our objective was to investigate factors associated with potentially inappropriate ICU admission., Methods: Retrospective cohort study of patients with cancer with unplanned ICU admission. We classified admissions as appropriate or potentially inappropriate according to Society of Critical Care Medicine guidelines. We used logistic regression model to assess factors associated with inappropriateness for ICU admission., Results: From 3384 patients, 663 (19.6%) were classified as potentially inappropriate. They received more invasive mechanical ventilation (25.3% vs 12.5%, P < 0.001) and vasopressors (34.4% vs 30.1%, P = 0.034), had higher ICU [3 (2,6) vs 2 (1,4), P < 0.001] length-of-stay, higher ICU (32.7% vs 8.4%, P < 0.001), hospital (71.9% vs 21.3%, P < 0.001), and one-year mortality (97.6% vs 54.7%, P < 0.001) compared with those considered appropriate. Performance status impairment, more severe organ dysfunctions at admission, metastatic disease, and source of ICU admission were the characteristics associated with intensivist's perception of inappropriateness of ICU admission., Conclusions: These findings may help guide ICU admission policies and triage criteria for end-of-life discussions among hospitalized patients with cancer., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The author APNJ has received financial support from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific Development (CNPq)., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Studies of critically ill hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients have mainly been single-center and focused on allogenic HSCT recipients. We aimed to describe a cohort of autologous HSCT with an unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admission., Methods: This study is a retrospective cohort study of autologous HSCT performed as a treatment for a hematological malignancy, during their first unplanned ICU admission in 50 hospitals in Brazil. We assessed the hospital mortality and the association between mechanical ventilation, vasopressors, and renal replacement therapy and hospital mortality in autologous HSCT recipients, adjusted for potential confounders., Results: We included 301 patients. Multiple myeloma was the most common malignancy driving to HSCT. ICU and hospital mortality were 22.9% and 37.5%, respectively. After adjustment for potential confounders, mechanical ventilation (OR = 9.10; CI 95%, 4.82-17.15) was associated with hospital mortality, but vasopressors (OR = 1.43; CI 95%, 0.77-2.64) and renal replacement therapy (OR = 1.30; CI 95%, 0.63-2.66) were not., Conclusions: In this large cohort of critically ill autologous HSCT recipients, mechanical ventilation was the only organ support-therapy associated with increased mortality in autologous HSCT recipients., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest MS is founder of Epimed Monitor®, an electronic healthcare system used to collect data and track ICU quality metrics. FGZ has received grants for investigator-initiated studies from Ionis Pharmaceuticals (USA), Bactiguard (Sweden) and Brazilian Ministry of Health, none related to the scope of this study., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: To compare the prognostic accuracy of Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and quick SOFA (qSOFA) with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria in critically ill cancer patients with suspected infection., Methods: Data for 450 cancer patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) in 2014 with a suspected infection were retrospectively analyzed. Sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) values for SOFA, qSOFA, and SIRS criteria for ICU and hospital mortalities were calculated. Mortalities according to Sepsis-2 stratification (e.g., sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock) and Sepsis-3 stratification (e.g., infection, sepsis, and septic shock) were also compared., Results: SOFA outperformed SIRS in predicting mortalities for ICU [(AUC, 0.76; 95% confidence interval (CI) 95%, 0.71-0.81) vs. (AUC, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.56-0.67), p < .01] and hospital [(AUC, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.65-0.74) vs. (AUC, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.52-0.63), p < .01)] patients. Similarly, qSOFA outperformed SIRS for both settings [(AUC, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.65-0.76, p = .02) vs. (AUC, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.64-0.74; p < .01), respectively]., Conclusions: SOFA and qSOFA were more sensitive and accurate than SIRS in predicting ICU and hospital mortality for critically ill cancer patients with suspected infection., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To evaluate if more frequent serum creatinine (sCr) measurements in the early postoperative period (first 48 hours) after cardiac surgery would help in early diagnosis of acute kidney injury (AKI), as well as reveal cases of AKI duration of fewer than 24 hours (vtAKI). The sequential blood and urinary biochemical profile of patients who developed vtAKI was compared with that of the patients who did not develop AKI or who developed AKI for more than 48 hours (pAKI)., Design: A retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data., Setting: Two intensive care units of 2 private hospitals., Participants: Twenty-nine patients who underwent cardiac surgery who had 6 values of serum creatinine (sCr) measured within the first 48 hours after surgery and concomitant spot urine samples for urine biochemistry assessment., Interventions: None., Measurements and Main Results: Eighteen patients (62%) developed Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) sCr-based AKI, half of them for fewer than 24 hours. Most AKI patients had the sCr increase diagnosed 6 to 12 hours after surgery. When comparing the sequential alterations of blood and urinary parameters among patients with no AKI, vtAKI, and pAKI, the authors found that most of them were similar among groups, differing only in magnitude and duration., Conclusions: More frequent sCr measurements in the early postoperative period, together with urine biochemistry assessment, have the potential to anticipate AKI diagnosis after cardiac surgery and reveal cases of very transient AKI usually not diagnosed in current practice. The clinical relevance of these findings must be evaluated in larger, prospective studies., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Strategies aiming light sedation are associated with decreased length on mechanical ventilation. However, awake or easily arousable patients may be prone to greater prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the safety of light sedation strategies regarding the prevalence of PTSD., Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science from inception to November 2014 for randomized controlled trials that evaluated light sedation strategies and addressed PTSD prevalence in the follow-up as a specific outcome. Because not all trials performed the same comparisons, we performed a network meta-analysis to evaluate indirect comparisons., Results: Five studies fulfilled our inclusion criteria and were included in the meta-analysis. Two studies compared daily sedation interruption with usual care (92 patients), 2 studies compared a light sedation protocol with daily sedation interruption (47 patients), and 1 study compared light and deep sedation (102 patients). Compared with usual sedation care/deep sedation, neither daily interruption of sedation (odds ratio=0.66; 95% confidence interval, 0.22-1.98) nor a light sedation protocol (odds ratio=0.90, 95% confidence interval, 0.27-3.05) was associated with increased risks on long-term PTSD prevalence., Conclusion: Light sedation strategies seem to be safe in terms of PTSD prevalence. However, the small number of included trials and patients may not be sufficient to drive strong statements., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Prognostic models have been developed to estimate mortality and to compare outcomes in different intensive care units. However, these models need to be validated before their use in different populations. In this study, we assessed the performance of 3 recently developed general prognostic models (Acute Physiologic and Chronic Health Evaluation [APACHE] IV, Simplified Acute Physiology Score [SAPS] 3 and Mortality Probability Model III [MPM(0)-III]) in a population admitted at 3 medical-surgical Brazilian intensive care units., Materials and Methods: All patients admitted from July 2008 to December 2009 were evaluated for inclusion in the study. Standardized mortality ratios were calculated for all models. Calibration was assessed by the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test. Discrimination was evaluated using the area under the receiver operator curve., Results: A total of 5780 patients were included. Inhospital mortality was 9.1%. Discrimination was very good for all models (area under the receiver operator curve for APACHE IV, SAPS 3 and MPM(0)-III was 0.883, 0.855 and 0.840, respectively). APACHE IV showed better discrimination than SAPS 3 and MPM(0)-III (P < .001 for both comparisons). All models calibrated poorly and overestimated hospital mortality (Hosmer-Lemeshow statistic was 53.7, 134.2, 226.6 for APACHE IV, MPM(0)-III, and SAPS 3, respectively; P < .001 for all)., Conclusions: In this study, all models showed poor calibration, while discrimination was very good for all of them. As this has been a common finding in validation studies, caution is warranted when using prognostic models for benchmarking., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Although gastrointestinal motility disorders are common in critically ill patients, constipation and its implications have received very little attention. We aimed to determine the incidence of constipation to find risk factors and its implications in critically ill patients, Materials and Methods: During a 6-month period, we enrolled all patients admitted to an intensive care unit from an universitary hospital who stayed 3 or more days. Patients submitted to bowel surgery were excluded., Results: Constipation occurred in 69.9% of the patients. There was no difference between constipated and not constipated in terms of sex, age, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II, type of admission (surgical, clinical, or trauma), opiate use, antibiotic therapy, and mechanical ventilation. Early (<24 hours) enteral nutrition was associated with less constipation, a finding that persisted at multivariable analysis (P < .01). Constipation was not associated with greater intensive care unit or mortality, length of stay, or days free from mechanical ventilation., Conclusions: Constipation is very common among critically ill patients. Early enteral nutrition is associated with earlier return of bowel function.