Inclusion body myositis is a rare myopathy associated with a high rate of respiratory complications. This condition usually requires prolonged mechanical ventilation and prolonged intensive care stay. The unsuccessful weaning is mainly related to respiratory muscle weakness that does not promptly respond to immunosuppressive therapy. We are reporting a case of a patient in whom the use of an in...

Introduction Most patients undergoing mechanical ventilation (MV) in critical care units are liberated from the ventilator within a median of 7 days. Unfortunately, some patients experience difficulty in liberation from MV during their ICU stays and require extended time on MV. It has been estimated that 40% of the patient’s duration on the ventilator is spent weaning.[1] Moreover, although pat...

Several papers on respiratory and critical care published from March 2012 to February 2013 were reviewed. From these, this study selected and summarized ten articles, in which the findings were notable, new, and interesting: effects of high-frequency oscillation ventilation on acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS); safety and efficacy of hydroxyethyl starch as a resuscitation fluid; long-t...

We studied the outcome of prolonged (> 3 days) mechanical ventilation in 181 patients aged 70 and over and determined the risk factors for in-hospital mortality. The overall in-hospital mortality for the entire study group was 57.5%. The previous medical history did not influence the final outcome. Shock during the intensive care unit (ICU) stay and an admission diagnosis of cardiac arrest were...

Introduction Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a non-invasive and portable lung imaging technique for dynamic evaluation of lung volume distribution. Previous studies had proved the EIT can provide information on regional distribution of ventilation and changes in end-expiratory lung volume (△EELV). The effect of EIT application in ventilation distribution of prolonged mechanical ventila...

BACKGROUND Diaphragmatic dysfunction found in the patients with acute lung injury required prolonged mechanical ventilation. Mechanical ventilation can induce production of inflammatory cytokines and excess deposition of extracellular matrix proteins via up-regulation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1. Lumican is known to participate in TGF-β1 signaling during wound healing. The mechanisms...

It is estimated that approximately 800 000 US patients annually require mechanical ventilation to treat acute respiratory failure due to medical disorders, trauma or the postoperative period. The use of mechanical ventilation is projected to increase significantly in the next few decades due to the impact of aging baby bloomers requiring more critical care resources. Although life-saving, the p...

background and objective: to assess the incidence and risk factors of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in children admitted to pediatric intensive care unit for more than 6 hrs. methods: we prospectively collected medical records of children between 1 month and 18 years old admit-ted to our 10 bed picu of a tertiary care university hospital between december 1, 2014 and may 30, 2015. de-mographic...

conclusions the results of this study indicated that pmv predictors could be specific for each center and a good administration program is needed for each pediatric cardiac surgery center for the preoperative management of patients undergoing congenital heart surgeries. results a total of 300 patients, 56.7% male, were enrolled in this study. their mean age was 32 ± 40 months .the median durati...