Concise Critical Appraisal: ARREST Trial: ECMO Versus Advanced Cardiac Life Support The ARREST Trial compared extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)-facilitated resuscitation to advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) treatment in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). This month’s Concise Critical Appraisal takes a deep dive into the trial, published in The Lancet.
Cardiovascular, Concise Critical Appraisal, Resuscitation
Concise Critical Appraisal: Dexamethasone Use in the Treatment of ARDs Villar et al (Lancet Respir Med. 2020;8:267-276) attempted to demonstrate the effect of steroids in patients with moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) along with modern standard ICU practices, including lung-protective mechanical ventilation.
ARDS, Concise Critical Appraisal
Concise Critical Appraisal: Dexamethasone Use in the Treatment of COVID-19 This Concise Critical Appraisal offers a look into the results of the RECOVERY trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which demonstrated that dexamethasone improved mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
Concise Critical Appraisal, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Dexamethasone
Concise Critical Appraisal: Early Use of Tranexamic Acid in the Treatment of Gastrointestinal Bleeds This Concise Critical Appraisal offers a deep dive into the HALT-IT trial, which investigated whether early use of tranexamic acid to treat acute severe gastrointestinal bleeds would reduce overall mortality while limiting the burden of thromboembolic events.
Concise Critical Appraisal, Nutrition
Concise Critical Appraisal: Is CPR Futile for COVID-19 Patients? Is cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) futile in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 experiencing cardiac arrest? A study recently published in Critical Care Medicine sought to answer this question and provide more data around outcomes of in-hospital cardiac arrest in patients with COVID-19.
Concise Critical Appraisal, COVID-19, Resuscitation
Concise Critical Appraisal: PERSEVERE Biomarkers in Predicting AKI in Pediatric Septic Shock Can the biomarkers identified in the Pediatric Sepsis Biomarker Risk Model (PERSEVERE II) be used to predict acute kidney injury and renal recovery in pediatric septic shock? This Concise Critical Appraisal explores a study in which Stanski et al (Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020;201:848-855) sought to answer this question.
Concise Critical Appraisal, renal, sepsis, Septic Shock
Concise Critical Appraisal: Use of Early Versus Late Enteral Nutrition in Critically Ill Children What is the benefit of early versus late nutrition in critically ill children? In this Concise Critical Appraisal, Daniel E. Sloniewsky, MD, FCCM, offers a deep dive on this Pediatric Critical Care Medicine article by Srinivasan et al, which sought to answer this question using data from the Heart and Lung Failure-Pediatric Insulin Titration (HALF-PINT) study.
Impact of Rapid Exome Sequencing on Management of Critically Ill Children Dive into a study that evaluates a standardized process of using rapid exome sequencing to help diagnose critically ill children with suspected genetic diseases in this Concise Critical Appraisal.
Concise Critical Appraisal, Therapies