Recently published papers An ancient debate, novel monitors and post ICU outcome in the elderly 英文参考文献.docVIP

Critical Care August 2005 Vol 9 No 4 Sadler and Williams Commentary Recently published papers: An ancient debate, novel monitors and post ICU outcome in the elderly James Sadler1 and Gareth Williams2 1Specialist Registrar in Anaesthesia, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK 2Consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK Corresponding author: Gareth Williams, gareth.williams@uhl-tr.nhs.uk Published online: 22 July 2005 Critical Care 2005, 9:314-316 (DOI 10.1186/cc3785) This article is online at /content/9/4/314 ? 2005 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract results because there was significant heterogeneity between the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the studies. The authors acknowledge this limitation. The hospital and 30-day mortality rates were no different between the two groups, and the risk for hospital-acquired pneumonia was also unchanged. Tracheostomies have been around for close to 3000 years, so one would hope that the controversies might have been thrashed out by now, but apparently not. Judging by some recent publications it would appear that we still do not know when or how to insert them. Monitoring is fundamental to critical care; two papers describe novel/modified techniques for assessing traumatic brain injury and cardiac output. The intensive care unit imposes a heavy treatment burden, particularly on the elderly. What impact does this have on the lives of the survivors? A recent retrospective study conducted by Chia-Lin Hsu and coworkers [3] investigated the optimal timing of tracheo- stomy formation, its impact on weaning from artificial ventilation, and the outcomes in patients in a medical ICU at the 1500-bedded National Taiwan University Hospital. A total of 163 patients were included and divided into two groups: successful weaning and failure to wean. Interestingly, the study discusses rates of a