INTRODUCTION Because the use of procalcitonin (PCT) as a marker of bacterial infection has been advocated, this study was carried out to determine the usefulness of plasma PCT in the early diagnosis and differentiation of patients with non-infectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) from those with sepsis, and the relationship between plasma PCT level and severity of organ failure...

OBJECTIVE Homocysteine and sepsis are both associated with inflammation and endothelial activation. Therefore this study was aimed to evaluate if the plasma homocystein level is related with the septic patient clinical severity. METHODS Severe sepsis or septic shock patients, with less than 48 hours from organ dysfunction start, were admitted to this prospective observational study. Homocyste...

UNLABELLED  Background/Purpose. In Japan, acute liver failure (ALF) has generally been described using the diagnostic term, "fulminant hepatitis", because of the fact that most cases of ALF has been thought to occur in association with hepatitis mainly due to a hepatitis virus infection. New diagnostic criteria for ALF, including ALF other than fulminant hepatitis, were established in 2011. We ...

INTRODUCTION The incidence and outcome of acute respiratory failure (ARF) depend on dysfunction in other organs. As a result, reported mortality in patients with ARF is derived from a mixed group of patients with different degrees of multiorgan failure. The main goal of the present study was to investigate patient outcome in single organ ARF. PATIENTS AND METHOD From 1 January 2000 to 1 July ...

BACKGROUND Cirrhotic patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) have high mortality rates. The present study compared the characteristics and outcomes of critically ill patients admitted to the ICU with and without cirrhosis using the matched Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III (APACHE III) and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) scores. METHODS A retrospective ca...

In the study by Haniffa et al., the authors have brilliantly proposed “TropICS” as the first multinational prognostic model for critically ill patients in resource-limited settings. The study used data from four South East Asian nations, involving a large number of unselected ICU patients for development and validation of three prognostic models. Of the three proposed models, TropICS performed ...

The Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock has recently defined sepsis as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Organ dysfunctions in this consensus definition were identified as an organ-specific Sequential [Sepsis-related] Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score ≥ 2 points. The quick SOFA (qSOFA) considers altere...

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a common and serious problem that develops after more than 48 hours of mechanical ventilation. Improving the activity of immune system with vitamin D, and its consequent impact on prognostic biomarkers of VAP was studied in the current study. A randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical trial was designed. A total of 46 patients with VAP, who w...

Abstract Background Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the most common nosocomial infection. Red cell distribution width (RDW) and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) are prognostic factors to mortality in different diseases. The aim of this study evaluate efficiency RDW, NLR, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score for prediction respiratory patients with VAP. Results One hundred ...