BACKGROUND Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is characterized by a biochemical triad of hyperglycemia, acidosis, and ketonemia. This condition is life-threatening despite improvements in diabetic care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical and biochemical prognostic markers of DKA. We assessed correlations in prognostic markers with DKA-associated morbidity and mortality. METHODS T...

Methods Observational study performed in a 17 beds medicalsurgical ICU. Time of study was 18 months. Consecutive mechanically ventilated patients during more than 48 hours were included. The variables analyzed were age, sex, cause of the intubation, APACHE II at admission in ICU, vasoactive requirements, fluid balance, day of weaning, ICU length of stay, tracheotomy, rate of reintubation. We di...

This study was designed to assess whether plasma cy-tokines correlated with the clinical status of postsurgical patients. Plasma levels of cytokines in 72 patients admitted to the intensive care unit were measured using an Enzyme Linked Immuno Solubent Assay. The clinical status was evaluated with the Acute Physiology Age and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) 11 scoring system. There were sign...

BACKGROUND Despite initial recovery from critical illness, many patients deteriorate after discharge from the intensive care unit (ICU). We examined prospectively collected data in an attempt to identify patients at risk of readmission or death after intensive care discharge. METHODS This was a secondary analysis of clinical audit data from patients discharged alive from a mixed medical and s...

BACKGROUND Red cell distribution width (RDW) is a part of the complete blood count (CBC) panel reflecting quantitative measure of variability in the size of circulating red blood cells. It has been known that higher RDW is associated with increased mortality in several diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between RDW and hospital mortality in intensive care unit (I...

Results: A significant association was found between the 48-hour score and the presence of pancreatic necrosis (P .001), organ failure (P=.001), and death (P .001). By contrast, the APACHE II score at admission was significantly associated only with the presence of organ failure (P=.007). Deteriorating APACHE II scores over 48 hours were significantly associated with a fatal outcome (P=.03). Th...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and copeptin, in addition to the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II) scores, in patients with acute organophosphorus pesticide poisoning (AOPP). A total of 100 patients with AOPP were included and divided into mild, moderate and severe groups according to AOPP diagnosis and cl...

BACKGROUND The indications for surgical treatment of patients with head and neck cancer can be limited by the risk of perioperative complications. Prediction of outcome is important in disease stratification and the subsequent decision-making process. OBJECTIVE To assess the value of the APACHE II (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II) score, POSSUM (Physiological and Operative S...

considered are extremely large) and would be of no use in medical audit. Third, we prefer to use a system for evaluation of severity of disease that analyzes the modifications of basic pathophysiologic patterns of response to disease, as the Apache II system does, because it represents in our opinion the best tool for risk evaluation in all kinds of patients. The Apache II system was applied in...