...the very late group received more frequently tocilizumab as an adjunctive therapy: although the authors hypothesized that this was due to a longer time between steroid treatment and intubation, ...intubation is not a formal contraindication for such treatment. ...we think that the data presented in this brief report, although of great interest, might present important limitations as residual confounding could not be excluded. Effect of timing of intubation on clinical outcomes of critically ill patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of non-randomized cohort studies.
Low tidal volume (VT) during anesthesia minimizes lung injury but may be associated to a decrease in functional lung volume impairing lung mechanics and efficiency. Lung recruitment (RM) can restore ...lung volume but this may critically depend on the post-RM selected PEEP. This study was a randomized, two parallel arm, open study whose primary outcome was to compare the effects on driving pressure of adding a RM to low-VT ventilation, with or without an individualized post-RM PEEP in patients without known previous lung disease during anesthesia.
Consecutive patients scheduled for major abdominal surgery were submitted to low-VT ventilation (6 ml·kg-1) and standard PEEP of 5 cmH2O (pre-RM, n = 36). After 30 min estabilization all patients received a RM and were randomly allocated to either continue with the same PEEP (RM-5 group, n = 18) or to an individualized open-lung PEEP (OL-PEEP) (Open Lung Approach, OLA group, n = 18) defined as the level resulting in maximal Cdyn during a decremental PEEP trial. We compared the effects on driving pressure and lung efficiency measured by volumetric capnography.
OL-PEEP was found at 8±2 cmH2O. 36 patients were included in the final analysis. When compared with pre-RM, OLA resulted in a 22% increase in compliance and a 28% decrease in driving pressure when compared to pre-RM. These parameters did not improve in the RM-5. The trend of the DP was significantly different between the OLA and RM-5 groups (p = 0.002). VDalv/VTalv was significantly lower in the OLA group after the RM (p = 0.035).
Lung recruitment applied during low-VT ventilation improves driving pressure and lung efficiency only when applied as an open-lung strategy with an individualized PEEP in patients without lung diseases undergoing major abdominal surgery.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02798133.
Background Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality after open abdominal surgery. Optimized perioperative lung expansion may minimize the synergistic ...factors responsible for the multiple-hit perioperative pulmonary dysfunction. This ongoing study will assess whether an anesthesia-centered bundle focused on perioperative lung expansion results in decreased incidence and severity of PPCs after open abdominal surgery. Methods Prospective multicenter randomized controlled pragmatic trial in 750 adult patients with at least moderate risk for PPCs undergoing prolonged (≥2 hour) open abdominal surgery. Participants are randomized to receive either a bundle intervention focused on perioperative lung expansion or usual care. The bundle intervention includes preoperative patient education, intraoperative protective ventilation with individualized positive end-expiratory pressure to maximize respiratory system compliance, optimized neuromuscular blockade and reversal management, and postoperative incentive spirometry and early mobilization. Primary outcome is the distribution of the highest PPC severity by postoperative day 7. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of participants with: PPC grades 1–2 through POD 7; PPC grades 3–4 through POD 7, 30 and 90; intraoperative hypoxemia, rescue recruitment maneuvers, or cardiovascular events; and any major extrapulmonary postoperative complications. Additional secondary and exploratory outcomes include individual PPCs by POD 7, length of postoperative oxygen therapy or other respiratory support, hospital resource use parameters, Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurements (PROMIS®) questionnaires for dyspnea and fatigue collected before and at days 7, 30 and 90 after surgery, and plasma concentrations of lung injury biomarkers (IL6, IL-8, RAGE, CC16, Ang-2) analyzed from samples obtained before, end of, and 24 hours after surgery. Discussion Participant recruitment for this study started January 2020; results are expected in 2024. At the conclusion of this trial, we will determine if this anesthesia-centered strategy focused on perioperative lung expansion reduces lung morbidity and healthcare utilization after open abdominal surgery. Trial registration ClinicalTrial.gov NCT04108130.
The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe form of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure caused by an insult to the alveolar-capillary membrane, resulting in a marked reduction of ...aerated alveoli, increased vascular permeability and subsequent interstitial and alveolar pulmonary edema, reduced lung compliance, increase of physiological dead space, and hypoxemia. Most ARDS patients improve their systemic oxygenation, as assessed by the ratio between arterial partial pressure of oxygen and inspired oxygen fraction, with conventional intensive care and the application of moderate-to-high levels of positive end-expiratory pressure. However, in some patients hypoxemia persisted because the lungs are markedly injured, remaining unresponsive to increasing the inspiratory fraction of oxygen and positive end-expiratory pressure. For decades, mechanical ventilation was the only standard support technique to provide acceptable oxygenation and carbon dioxide removal. Mechanical ventilation provides time for the specific therapy to reverse the disease-causing lung injury and for the recovery of the respiratory function. The adverse effects of mechanical ventilation are direct consequences of the changes in pulmonary airway pressures and intrathoracic volume changes induced by the repetitive mechanical cycles in a diseased lung. In this article, we review 14 major successful and unsuccessful randomized controlled trials conducted in patients with ARDS on a series of techniques to improve oxygenation and ventilation published since 2010. Those trials tested the effects of adjunctive therapies (neuromuscular blocking agents, prone positioning), methods for selecting the optimum positive end-expiratory pressure (after recruitment maneuvers, or guided by esophageal pressure), high-frequency oscillatory ventilation, extracorporeal oxygenation, and pharmacologic immune modulators of the pulmonary and systemic inflammatory responses in patients affected by ARDS. We will briefly comment physiology-based gaps of negative trials and highlight the possible needs to address in future clinical trials in ARDS.
Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality after open abdominal surgery. Optimized perioperative lung expansion may minimize the synergistic factors ...responsible for the multiple-hit perioperative pulmonary dysfunction. This ongoing study will assess whether an anesthesia-centered bundle focused on perioperative lung expansion results in decreased incidence and severity of PPCs after open abdominal surgery.
Prospective multicenter randomized controlled pragmatic trial in 750 adult patients with at least moderate risk for PPCs undergoing prolonged (≥2 hour) open abdominal surgery. Participants are randomized to receive either a bundle intervention focused on perioperative lung expansion or usual care. The bundle intervention includes preoperative patient education, intraoperative protective ventilation with individualized positive end-expiratory pressure to maximize respiratory system compliance, optimized neuromuscular blockade and reversal management, and postoperative incentive spirometry and early mobilization. Primary outcome is the distribution of the highest PPC severity by postoperative day 7. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of participants with: PPC grades 1-2 through POD 7; PPC grades 3-4 through POD 7, 30 and 90; intraoperative hypoxemia, rescue recruitment maneuvers, or cardiovascular events; and any major extrapulmonary postoperative complications. Additional secondary and exploratory outcomes include individual PPCs by POD 7, length of postoperative oxygen therapy or other respiratory support, hospital resource use parameters, Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurements (PROMIS®) questionnaires for dyspnea and fatigue collected before and at days 7, 30 and 90 after surgery, and plasma concentrations of lung injury biomarkers (IL6, IL-8, RAGE, CC16, Ang-2) analyzed from samples obtained before, end of, and 24 hours after surgery.
Participant recruitment for this study started January 2020; results are expected in 2024. At the conclusion of this trial, we will determine if this anesthesia-centered strategy focused on perioperative lung expansion reduces lung morbidity and healthcare utilization after open abdominal surgery.
ClinicalTrial.gov NCT04108130.
Prewarming has been shown to prevent intraoperative inadvertent hypothermia. Nevertheless, data about optimal prewarming-time from published clinical trials report contradictory results. We conducted ...this pilot study to evaluate routine clinical practice regarding prewarming and its effect on the prevalence of perioperative hypothermia in patients undergoing transurethral resection (TUR) under spinal anesthesia. This was a prospective, observational, pilot study to examine clinical practice in a tertiary hospital regarding prewarming in 140 consecutive patients. When prewarming (pw) was performed, forced-air warming was provided in the pre-anesthesia room for 15 (pw15), 30 (pw30), or 45 (pw45) min. Tympanic temperature was recorded upon entering the pre-anesthesia room, at the time of initiating surgery, and every 15 min intra-operatively. We also recorded duration of the surgical procedure and length of stay in the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU). Pw15 was performed in 34 patients, pw30 in 29 patients, and pw45 in 21 patients. Fifty-six patients did not receive pw and 96% of them developed hypothermia at the end of the surgical procedure, compared to 73% of patients in pw15 (p = 0.002), 75% in pw30 (p = 0.006) and 90% in pw45 (p = 0.3). Length of stay in the PACU was markedly shorter in pw15 (131 ± 69 min) and pw30 (123 ± 60 min) than in the non-pw group (197 ± 105 min) (p = 0.015 and p = 0.011, respectively). This difference was not significant in pw45 (129 ± 56 min) compared to non-pw patients. In conclusion, prewarming for 15 or 30 min before TUR under spinal anesthesia prevents development of hypothermia at the end of the surgical procedure.
Despite the benefits of mechanical ventilation, its use in critically ill patients is associated with complications and had led to the growth of noninvasive techniques. We assessed the effect of ...early intubation (first 8 h after vasopressor start) in septic shock patients, as compared to non-early intubated subjects (unexposed), regarding in-hospital mortality, intensive care and hospital length of stay.
This study involves secondary analysis of a multicenter prospective study. To adjust for baseline differences in potential confounders, propensity score matching was carried out. In-hospital mortality was analyzed in a time-to-event fashion, while length of stay was assessed as a median difference using bootstrapping.
A total of 735 patients (137 intubated in the first 8 h) were evaluated. Propensity score matching identified 78 pairs with similar severity and characteristics on admission. Intubation was used in all patients in the early intubation group and in 27 (35%) subjects beyond 8 h in the unexposed group. Mortality occurred in 35 (45%) and in 26 (33%) subjects in the early intubation and unexposed groups (hazard ratio 1.44 95% CI 0.86-2.39, p = 0.16). ICU and hospital length of stay were not different among groups 9 vs. 5 (95% CI 1 to 7) and 14 vs. 16 (95% CI - 7 to 8) days. All sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of our findings.
An early approach to invasive mechanical ventilation did not improve outcomes in this matched cohort of patients. The limited number of patients included in these analyses out the total number included in the study may limit generalizability of these findings. Trial registration NCT02780466. Registered on May 19, 2016.
Mechanical ventilation (MV) is a lifesaving supportive intervention in the management of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), buying time while the primary precipitating cause is being ...corrected. However, MV can contribute to a worsening of the primary lung injury, known as ventilation-induced lung injury (VILI), which could have an important impact on outcome. The ARDS lung is characterized by diffuse and heterogeneous lung damage and is particularly prone to suffer the consequences of an excessive mechanical stress imposed by higher airway pressures and volumes during MV. Of major concern is cyclic overdistension, affecting those lung segments receiving a proportionally higher tidal volume in an overall reduced lung volume. Theoretically, healthier lung regions are submitted to a larger stress and cyclic deformation and thus at high risk for developing VILI. Clinicians have difficulties in detecting VILI, particularly cyclic overdistension at the bedside, since routine monitoring of gas exchange and lung mechanics are relatively insensitive to this mechanism of VILI. Expired CO
2
kinetics integrates relevant pathophysiological information of high interest for monitoring. CO
2
is produced by cell metabolism in large daily quantities. After diffusing to tissue capillaries, CO
2
is transported first by the venous and then by pulmonary circulation to the lung. Thereafter diffusing from capillaries to lung alveoli, it is finally convectively transported by lung ventilation for its elimination to the atmosphere. Modern readily clinically available sensor technology integrates information related to pulmonary ventilation, perfusion, and gas exchange from the single analysis of expired CO
2
kinetics measured at the airway opening. Current volumetric capnography (VCap), the representation of the volume of expired CO
2
in one single breath, informs about pulmonary perfusion, end-expiratory lung volume, dead space, and pulmonary ventilation inhomogeneities, all intimately related to cyclic overdistension during MV. Additionally, the recently described capnodynamic method provides the possibility to continuously measure the end-expiratory lung volume and effective pulmonary blood flow. All this information is accessed non-invasively and breath-by-breath helping clinicians to personalize ventilatory settings at the bedside and minimize overdistension and cyclic deformation of lung tissue.
There are no specific generally accepted therapies for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The full spectrum of COVID-19 ranges from asymptomatic disease to mild respiratory tract illness to ...severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multisystem organ failure, and death. The efficacy of corticosteroids in viral ARDS remains unknown. We postulated that adjunctive treatment of established ARDS caused by COVID-19 with intravenous dexamethasone might change the pulmonary and systemic inflammatory response and thereby reduce morbidity, leading to a decrease in duration of mechanical ventilation and in mortality.
This is a multicenter, randomized, controlled, parallel, open-label, superiority trial testing dexamethasone in 200 mechanically ventilated adult patients with established moderate-to-severe ARDS caused by confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Established ARDS is defined as maintaining a PaO
/FiO
≤ 200 mmHg on PEEP ≥ 10 cmH
O and FiO
≥ 0.5 after 12 ± 3 h of routine intensive care. Eligible patients will be randomly assigned to receive either dexamethasone plus standard intensive care or standard intensive care alone. Patients in the dexamethasone group will receive an intravenous dose of 20 mg once daily from day 1 to day 5, followed by 10 mg once daily from day 6 to day 10. The primary outcome is 60-day mortality. The secondary outcome is the number of ventilator-free days, defined as days alive and free from mechanical ventilation at day 28 after randomization. All analyses will be done according to the intention-to-treat principle.
This study will assess the role of dexamethasone in patients with established moderate-to-severe ARDS caused by SARS-CoV-2.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04325061 . Registered on 25 March 2020 as DEXA-COVID19.
PDF
